reyrey
didn't i tell you guys to
be here at 5?

pipes🩷
yeah??

sparky⚡️
yep

reyrey
THEN WHERE THE
HELL ARE YOU PEOPLE

mcshizzle 🔥
im sitting RIGHT ACROSS
FROM YOU???

sparky⚡️
practice ran late, im
TRYING 😭

reyrey
try harder.

this was supposed to be fun. here they were, celebrating the survival of their first official week of college as if they hadn't survived things much, much worse, yet red didn't feel like celebrating at all. instead, she was sitting in reyna's apartment and staring at the wall in a room separate from all of her friends.

reyna's record player was spinning vinyls on repeat to cover up the sound of her suppressed cries, which she prayed nobody could hear.

she'd been in there and away from the party for twenty minutes, leaving piper to dish out excuses each time her friends asked her whereabouts.

it had been working so far, but when she'd left the only other people that'd arrived other than the two daughters of aphrodite had been leo, percy, and annabeth.

in other words, jason grace had yet to step onto the scene.

and when he did, you know the first thing he asked was, "where's red?"

piper's eyes widened as she heard the question for the fourth time, beginning to run short of excuses.

"she's uh, not feeling real well." the girl fibbed. "she's just layin down for a bit. should be back soon."

"where's she at?" jason inquired, a crease in his brow. first of all, he was talking to piper, who he knew well enough to know when she was talking out of her ass. second, this was red they were talking about. if something was wrong, he was about to do everything he could in his power to try and fix it.

"seriously, jase, she's fine. you'll see her in a little bit." piper persisted as all of their friends began to look their way.

"fine." jason harrumphed. he then walked past piper and began knocking on each door one by one. there were only like, three in the whole place, it wasn't like it was going to take him long.

red jumped slightly when she heard a rap at the door. considering herself rather smart, she knew that there was only one of three people who would come to bother her when they knew she didn't want to be bothered: reyna, piper, or jason.

"go away." she mumbled at the still closed door, hoping that whoever it was in the other side would get the hint just from the sound of her thick-with-tears voice.

unfortunately for her, that someone was jason grace, who couldn't take a hint if it was handed to him.

the door creaked open and his shaggy head of blonde hair popped inside the dimly lit room.

"what was that?"

red's frown deepened on her face. she didn't need him to see her like this, wallowing in her own misery and thoughts with tears spilling down her redder-than-normal cheeks. and worse, he was trying to make her laugh by joking.

"go away, j."

jason's face fell. ignoring what she told him entirely, he was quick to step inside the room and shut the door behind himself, sitting beside her on reyna's bed.

"red..." he uttered her name with such a caring voice she almost wanted to cry harder. she didn't deserve that kind of care.

she didn't deserve him, or any of their other friends, or a half sister that replaced the one she'd grown up with and now only saw in her nightmares.

she didn't deserve this life. this life that was supposed to belong to silena beauregard.

"what's wrong? are you hurt?" jason asked her, swooping his head down to look at her tear-covered face.

"i'm fine." was her response. a pure and utter lie.
"i just—"

she hiccuped and cut herself off. flashes of all her long gone friends played in her head like a lapsing film reel. silena, lee, michael, luke, charlie, castor. and leo for a little bit there too.

she'd now outlived them all in age, and it was all she could think of.

"what? what is it?" the son of jupiter asked, his voice soft and quiet.

red rubbed against her eyelids with the heels of her hands, smearing around tears.

"it's just that . . . being here and— and having such a good time feels so, so wrong." she prattled out, her voice thick with tears.

she didn't know if she was even making any sense, but if there was anybody that would understand, it would be him.

and she had to tell someone. if she kept all these things in her head, it just might explode.

"what do you mean?" he asked. in truth, he feared that she meant it was wrong being at new rome because she was greek and this world was too different for her. that, or that she meant it was wrong being here with him.

"i mean—" she took a deep inhale, but her chest still felt tight. the room felt like it was filled with invisible smoke and was slowly suffocating her. "it doesn't feel right when so many of my friends didn't get this. they didn't get to go to college or run around with their friends or watch football practices. they all died on a battlefield back in new york."

gods, now she was a hysterical mess. her whole face was covered in salty tears and it made her skin burn.

it always did that when she cried. all of those acne scars and imperfections would burn with a new fire that reminded her she wasn't even worth being a daughter of aphrodite. but that was something to cry about another night.

jason's face softened at her words, a frown forming upon his lips and twisted the small scar on it.

"red, listen to me."

she was listening. she was always listening when it came to him. 

his warm hand slid over hers and gave it a squeeze, to which she latched onto it like it were her only means of survival in a world of chaos.

"if there is anyone in this world that deserves to rest, it is you. you can't change what's already happened, but you can decide what's going to happen in the future." he told her.

"it's just so hard to let go of them," she sniffled, wiping at her nose. "i dont want to forget anything, so i feel like it's just better for me to keep it all in and not share. that way, i won't forget."

"you don't have to forget them to move forward. you keep going and do the things that they didn't get to and that way, their memories stay alive through you." he told her, remembering all of the things he had been told or told himself when struck with grief. "i never knew silena, but i know from what you've told me, she'd want you to keep going forward. and by how you talk about her, i know that none of us are going to be forgetting her or anyone else."

red looked at him with drying watery eyes and softly furrowed brows. how was he real, she wondered.

"how do you do it?" she asked. jason's brow crinkled in question. "stay so positive even after everything."

the air crackled as reyna's record reached an end. thanks to some little gizmo leo had rigged up for her, the needle dropped again and the disc restarted. the entering tunes of tv girl simmered in the air.

jason looked at red with a soft smile. the hand that wasn't holding hers came up to her arm, delivering a little shock to her skin before rubbing a soothing path up and down it.

"because of people like you, rosebud." he smiled. "you, and all our friends out there," he gestured back to the closed door with a nod.

"you guys help me remember that at the end of the day, i'll always have a home to come back to, metaphorical or not. when you've been through the things we have together, those people don't just drift away. we're all here for you, okay?"

he looked at her expecting an answer, so red nodded her head while wiping away the final tear on her face.

"and even if no one else was, i am." he promised. "now, c'mere."

he opened his arms out to her, inviting her in and specifically remembering the one time she told him that he gave the best hugs of anyone she'd ever met.

red scooted closer to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, shoving her face against the flush skin of his neck.

he encircled her lower back with his arms and pulled her forward, but close wasn't close enough, so she wasted no time before clamoring into his lap.

jason thought his heart just might explode as she  clung to him like she just might die if she let go, his waist caged in by her legs.

by tomorrow, red's mind would be all muddled with the intimate feeling of this moment, something that was beyond pushing friendship. so would jason, but for now, he squeezed her right in his arms, never wanting to let go.

the vinyl spinning in the corner of the room reached the song's chorus as it played softly and static-y in the background, the two demigods not even hearing it over the rampant beating of their own hearts.

while the others talked, we were listening to lovers rock... in her bedroom, in her bedroom...

໋₊ ˑ ▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
      𝐤𝐣'𝐬 𝐤𝐨𝐨𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬! ⋆·˚ ༘ *
guys im ngl, this chapter's been drafted for a bit bc i didn't know if i wanted to include it or not... can ya tell i was goin thru it when i wrote this 😇

ANYWAYS

EVERYONE GO CHECK OUT BAE'S AMAZING ARTWORK OF OUR GIRL RED ON TUMBLR (@ sunflowers-art ) ‼️ TYSM -sunnflowerss- 💕