Chapter 48

They both pulled away from the kiss at the same time- most definitely because they both forgot to breathe.

It wasn’t as awkward as Kayla anticipated when they pulled back. They stared at eachother for a few seconds, breaths heavy. She could feel Clarisse’s hand that was keeping her up shaking rapidly, trying her hardest to keep herself hovering.

A separate voice saved them both from the silence, for better or for worse. Clarisse’s head snapped up, and Kayla closed her eyes like the ground might kindly swallow her.

“Hunting drills.” Clarisse mumbled, meeting Kayla’s face once again. She picked at some bark that had attached itself to the new headphones from the walkman  that now resided around her neck..”Let’s go, it’s my brothers.”

“You’re kidding,” Kayla swallowed, scrambling up as Clarisse shuffled off her with a grunt.

“It’s fine, they infiltrate the right side first. They’ll be wondering where I am though.”

Kayla nodded, picking up her Thanatos book. “You’re going, then?”

“Huh?” She paused, turning to face Kayla. “No, they can yell my name all they want. They know how to hunt.” She replied confidently, holding her hand out. She took it gratefully and they sauntered in the opposite direction of the voices.

“Mh,” Kayla wiped her mouth with the back of her free hand nervously, her eyebrows furrowed as she figured to speak up. She knew damn well Clarisse was trying to act cool right now. Looking away and trying not to freak out. Kayla was kind of doing the same thing. “I don’t know how- how to kiss. I’ve never kissed anyone before.”

Clarisse bit her lip, licking them calmly. “You did fine, don’t worry.”

“Fine? Have you ever kissed anyone before that?”

She paused, mulling over her answer. “In seventh
grade, I wanted to see if I liked boys.”

“You could have just looked in the mirror.”

Clarisse turned her head to Kayla slowly, giving her a deadpan look.
“Fucker, why didn’t you kiss the mirror? Maybe then you’d kiss better.”

“Hey! All I’m saying, is that I felt clueless, and you felt like you knew what to do.”

“Did I?” The look on Clarisse’s face showed that comment made her proud. Ugh. “I mean, it’s kissing, not rocket science, I figured to just… go for it.”

“Go for it,” She repeated quietly. “You know what? You are annoying. You could have gone for it last summer. Instead you waited forever.”

“Okay, listen, not my fault you got locked up in the Labyrinth for half a year, alright? And how was it supposed to know you liked me last summer! That was forever ago!”

Kayla huffed, playing stubborn and looking off to the side with a comical poker face. They reached the cabins after a few minutes, where Clarisse slipped her hand from Kayla’s. “Wanna hang out?”

“No, I’m gonna leave and go to my cabin,” She crossed her arms.”Yes, you idiot, what type of question is that? Open your stupid door.”

“I knew your sassy comebacks would reappear, see? What did I just say, like, half an hour ago?” Clarisse smiled, pushing the Ares cabin door open.

And as soon as it closed, Kayla jump scared her with another terrible kiss. Terrible, because: one, she barely even managed to reach her lips and almost made out with her chin, and two, because she surprised herself with making such a move there was no way it was a nice kiss.

However, Clarisse greeted her with hands that met her waist in a gentle hold. She felt as the girl fell back against the door with a thud and a grunt, which was muffled by the way her lips immediately clasped onto Kayla’s in reply. She had to be doing something right.

Clarisse.

How Kayla managed to catch her so off guard, she will never know.

She hadn’t been expecting it- Kayla didn’t exactly have a surrounding aura that screamed ‘I want to make out’ or that she had even an ounce of romantic confidence, but then again, neither did Clarisse.

However bad Kayla thought she was at kissing, she was so, so wrong. Clarisse had only ever kissed one boy. She knows, yeah, that’s embarrassing. Not only just one, but it was a boy. For the record of comparing to that one boy in seventh grade, this was much more fun.

Although, she wasn’t all that convinced that Kayla wasn’t trying to kill her right now. She couldn’t breathe, yet it was still exciting somehow. Her lips tasted like cherries, and she could ever so slightly feel the indent of the scar that had been left on the side of her lip. It matched Clarisse’s, which was on the opposite side. Kayla’s teeth clumsily bashed into Clarisse’s at times.

Okay, maybe they both needed a little work on kissing, but that just meant more kissing was needed, so it was a win win.

When Kayla pulled back and came off her tiptoes, they both gasped for breath. She pushed off the door, regained her mentality, and quickly jogged her memory up on how to speak again.

“Are you trying to kill me, or would it just be an accident?”

Kayla backed up sheepishly with wide eyes like a deer in headlights. “I just- uh, wanted to-“

“Wanted to what? You’re going to be the end of me, Graves.”

Kayla gave up with her excuse and instead offered a smile, turning on her heels towards Clarisse’s room as Clarisse nodded her head to the direction of her room. “Your wings are are all scraggy again,”

“Uh, I remember that being your fault, thanks.” Kayla quipped, flapping them strongly.

“Worth it,” She quipped, placing her backpack down on the floor. She cleared her throat, grabbing a hairbrush and some perfume. Oh, all the things that came after comfessing feelings… Clarisse was not prepared. She was not made for this. She let out a sigh of defeat, as if she was already screwed. She was. She knew she was. Silena hadn’t taught her this far. Where was Silena? Her trusted moral support. Oh, no. She cleared her throat.

Aphrodite, please be nice here. I’ll give you so many offerings you won’t know what to do with them all. And please don’t tell my dad any of this.

“Come here, will you? Hands off the tape box. Atleast for now.”

Somewhat reluctantly and most definitely bashfully, Kayla pulled herself up and pushed the tape box under Clarisse’s bed slowly. She twiddled her thumbs and fingers like she didn’t know where to put herself. Which was rare. “Uh, sit down. I’ll give your wings a quick brush.”

Knowing the drill, Kayla padded over to the end of the bed and took a seat on the floor, where Clarisse crossed her legs behind her and sat on the edge. She took her time.

Should I be looking her in the eyes for this? She doesn’t do eye contact much anymore. Would she? Maybe this is the wrong time. But we did just kiss, what other time am I supposed to-

“So how long have you liked me?” Kayla spoke up, taking the words right out of her mouth. Clarisse forced herself to not stutter, instead chastising her own tongue with a bite and getting it all together. “Do you… want the genuine answer, or a simple answer?”

“You’re capeable of genuine answers?”

Kayla recieved a small nudge to her lower back. “Fine, simple answer then.”

“No, no! I’m sorry, genuine. I want genuine. I want specific.”

Half of her had been hoping Kayla would have accepted defeat when Clarisse threatened a simple answer. Oh, boy. “So, I mean, I don’t know exactly, but the time we rode from Polythemus’ island on Hippocampi together made me see a different side to you. A little.” She admitted. For her, she remembered that time vividly. Well, aside from the fact she remembered half of it because of induced trauma, she remembered the ride away from the island with such a distinct feeling. It was the first time she’d been forced to cuddle someone from behind on a literal seahorse, and that didn’t happen every single day.

She didn’t know what it was that made some sort of pang go through her chest for that entire ride. Maybe because she got such a close up, long look at Kayla’s features. Maybe the fact she saw strength and smartness in the girl that entire quest that she hadn’t had time to think about before just then. Maybe just being forced to share warmth and comfort with someone managed to break her down a little.

The summer after the quest where they hung out constantly was when she ever so slowly fell for her. The time they collected spiders to torture the Athena cabin with for revenge was most definitely the time she fully considered her being a big, giant crush. Oh, and the chocolate cake for her sixteeth birthday. That was the first time she considered making an actual move, she knew that.

“What about when you were more than confident you liked me?”

Ugh, nosy little gremlin. She hated saying this stuff out loud. “I liked you? Like, like like? “Uh, That whole competition day ordeal last summer.” She mumbled, moving onto Kayla’s right wing. She swore these things had grown bigger. They’d be like Malificent’s in no time at this rate. “What about you?”

“Wha- pause. Out of everything, the competitions day was it?” Kayla stammered.

Okay, maybe it was odd that out of everything they had done together, that day last summer had been it. It was a simple, competitive day for Clarisse. They had teamed up as a tag team, and it was the whole day full of competitions.

It was just… a full day with Kayla, plus doing her favourite things: fighting and competing.

“Yeah, it was fun.”

“I- well, yeah, but I literally made you lose the lava parkour tag team race. You ran around after me for the whole of lunch telling me how you would water board me after that.”

Her hands halted. She pulled a guilty, comical face to which she was glad Kayla could not see. “Come on, you know I was only joking?”

“Yeah, right. Well, I still don’t know how that was what did it for you, but okay.”

“Leave me alone, okay? It just… did. Can’t explain it.”

Thankfully, Kayla did shut up about the matter. The thing was, Clarisse could explain it. She could very easily explain that the fact she got to see so much of her personality in one day very much did it for her. How the only person to not apologise at all, ever, even if Clarisse was threatening mutiny, was Kayla. And that was something she grew to appreciate.

“You have to tell me yours now. When you realised.”

Kayla’s wings fluttered subconsciously, knocking the brush from her hand. She tutted in mock annoyance and reached back down for it. “Too late.” Is all she said.

Oh, she was not getting away with that.

“Too late? No, nu-uh. I just actually told you good answers for what you asked me. You need to so the same back.”

“The night i went missing, dork, alright? So it was too late. My idiot ass had been denying it for so long, even past all those summer sleepovers, and the competitions we teamed up for, even past the fourth of July fireworks, I mean, come on! The biggest dating event at camp, and we sat in the corner of the beach in a dark corner so no one even knew we were there, and I-“

“Okay, okay, I get it. You’re a clueless idiot, I knew that anyway.”

Kayla settled with her correct answer and let Clarisse brish through her wings once more. It went silent. Not awkward. Or- yeah, no. Scrap that. She had to build up the courage to ask one more single question. “So, uh…”

Breathe.

“Do you wanna–”

Spit it out, dumb ass.

“Wanna be my- Wanna date?”

“Yeah,” She replied back. As Clarisse stopped brushing her wings, she twiddled around on the floor to face Clarisse. “Let’s- take it slow though. Like, no need to rush.”

Yeah, cause taking it slow was mauling me the second we walked in, Kayla.

“Oh, yeah, yeah, no, ofcourse. Ofcourse we will.”

Please vote!!

Ts who fell first and who fell harder super duper easy edition.