“
Hey.’ Annabeth slid next to me on the bench. ‘Happy birthday.’ She was holding a huge misshapen cupcake with blue icing. I stared at her.
‘What?’
‘It’s August eighteenth,’ she said. ‘Your birthday, right?’
I was stunned. It hadn’t even occurred to me, but she was right. I had turned sixteen this morning – the same morning I’d made the choice to give Luke the knife. The prophecy had come true right on schedule, and I hadn’t even thought about the fact that it was my birthday. ‘Make a wish,’ she said.
‘Did you bake this yourself?’ I asked.
‘Tyson helped.’
‘That explains why it looks like a chocolate brick,’ I said. ‘With extra-blue cement.’
Annabeth laughed. I thought for a second then blew out the candle. We cut it in half and shared, eating with our fingers. Annabeth sat next to me and we watched the ocean. Crickets and monsters were making noise in the woods, but otherwise it was quiet.
‘You saved the world,’ she said.
‘We saved the world.’
‘And Rachel is the new Oracle, which means she won’t be dating anybody.’
‘You don’t sound disappointed,’ I noticed.
Annabeth shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t care.’
‘Uh-huh.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘You got something to say to me, Seaweed Brain?’
‘You’d probably kick my butt.’
‘You know I’d kick your butt.’
I brushed the cake off my hands. ‘When I was at the River Styx, turning invulnerable … Nico said I had to concentrate on one thing that kept me anchored to the world, that made me want to stay mortal.’
Annabeth kept her eyes on the horizon. ‘Yeah?’
‘Then up on Olympus,’ I said, ‘when they wanted to make me a god and stuff, I kept thinking –’
‘Oh, you so wanted to.’
‘Well, maybe a little. But I didn’t, because I thought – I didn’t want things to stay the same for eternity, because things could always get better. And I was thinking …’ My throat felt really dry.
‘Anyone in particular?’ Annabeth asked, her voice soft. I looked over and saw that she was trying not to smile.
‘You’re laughing at me,’ I complained.
‘I am not!’
‘You are so not making this easy.’
Then she laughed for real, and she put her hands around my neck. ‘I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Seaweed Brain. Get used to it.’ When she kissed me, I had the feeling my brain was melting right through my body.
”
”