She smiled watching him walk away, vanishing in the press of people hurrying along on the side walk. It was a small, sad smile, she was thankful he could not see it. It would make him feel guilty, and that just made it harder for her.
It was raining, she was glad for that. All these people around her would judge her harshly if they could see the tears running down her cheeks. They would see her as an overly attached teenager who was just dumped, which was not exactly wrong. But she had never been with him, not officially. And she never would be, not if he always looked at his best friend like he did while they walked away, jokingly fighting over something.
She stood there for hours. It had to have been hours, the street lights were lit when she turned to away from where she had watched Percy and Annabeth return to their adventurous life. The light glittered in the puddles around her as she started down the street, like the stars were around her. They talked about the stars, about a friend of Percy's who had died and became the stars.
If Rachel Elizabeth Dare had not seen some of those things for herself, she would have called them crazy. But she had been called crazy, she hated it. After traveling across the country with Percy Jackson, Rachel knew better than to call anyone crazy.
And even watching him with Annabeth, knowing that he loved her more than life itself, she felt crazy; crazy in love with a boy who would never see her as anything more than a friend. How she wanted him to look at her like that, to know that he would hold up the sky for her. She wanted to know that he would give up everything to save her. Knowing that anyone would do half of what Percy had done for Annabeth, for her, would be nice.
But she was alone, while Percy was with Annabeth. And Rachel was pretty sure that Percy was clueless that she liked him as more than just a friend. How a girl as smart as Annabeth could put up with a boy like Percy was beyond Rachel, but his charm and incredible smile more than made up for the lack of brains. Rachel could almost see how the relationship could possibly work, if they ever stopped fighting long enough to see that they like one another.
If only she could be at his side, laughing at the dumb jokes he tried out, facing the monsters she could see lingering on the edges of the crowd, sharing the knowledge that there was something greater at work and knowing they were directly related to it. If only she had been born like that, one of the demigods. It was wishful thinking, and did little to change her situation.
A mere mortal who knew about the greater picture, could see all the fundamental parts and how they all came together, but had no hand in any part of it. A mortal who could see but lacked the ability to interact, however it had been because of her inability to interact that she had been able to see Percy again. Because she was a mortal who could See she had gotten another chance to spend time with the boy she was madly in love with.
It made her hate her life a little bit more. All her work, everything she did, seemed to accomplish nothing compared to what she had helped accomplish in the few days she was with Percy and Annabeth. And if she talked to anyone about it, they would think she was crazy.

It was few weeks after she last saw him when Rachel Elizabeth Dare picked up the phone and dialed the number scribbled in the corner of one her sketch pads. The phone rang three times before someone answered it. Rachel immediately hung up, leaning back against the wall holding her phone against her chest and staring at the ceiling.
She was one of those teenage girls? The ones who called and hung up? Jeez, how much lower could she possibly sink?
She took a deep breath and dialed the number again. This time when the woman answered the phone, Rachel was ready. Forcing a smile that the woman would never see, she asked to talk to Percy.
"Hey Rachel," He greeted on the phone. She felt her heart rate quicken. "I'm glad you called, I really need someone to talk to."
She almost asked why he had not just talked to his demigod friends, like Annabeth. She managed to stop herself, just barely. She would hate to sound snarky.
"Talk about coincidence," she said breathlessly, "I was wanting to talk to you too."
"Cool," she could hear him smile through the phone. "Listen, I can't stay on the phone too long, so how about we meet up?"
"Yeah, sounds great." She should have known better. The signal off the phone towers alerted the monsters to Percy. She had put him at risk just calling him up like that. "I know this cool place, we can meet there."
She quickly gave him directions to a small café, agreeing to meet in an hour. She slid down the wall, her cell pressed against her chest as her heart rate returned to normal. She was meeting Percy, to talk and hang out. She was going to be hanging out with Percy, and hopefully the afternoon would not be ruined by monsters, or talk about Annabeth. It would be hard to get him to like her if he only talked about Annabeth.
He laughed a lot. For someone who had to put up with as much crap as he did, Percy seemed like a pretty happy guy. He smiled most of the afternoon, joking around and telling her stories about his summers at the demigod training camp. He talked his cousin, who joined the Hunters of Artemis, all the fights the two of them had and how much he missed her.
They moved on to other things, new movies releasing soon, music, how sucky he was at art. They spent the whole afternoon together and when it was finally growing dark he started serious talk. How worried he was about stuff happening to the demigods.
He quickly apologized for it. "I shouldn't tell you about all of this. It sounds worse when I say it out loud."
"It's okay. Sometimes you just need to tell someone," she smiled assuringly at him.
"Yeah, but you're just a mortal," his voice was laced with sorrow. As if it was his fault she was a mortal, like he was one who made her able to See.
"I can still listen," she offered. "Or I can be the one you tell all the not-so-serious life or death stuff to," She smiled.
"Yeah, I guess," he smiled back.
They agreed to meet the following week, same time, same place.
Every week she met with Percy. They hung out and joked around. It was her escape and his. But every week it took more and more to get him to smile. Every week he looked even more exhausted, if that was even possible. His life was continuing to deteriorate; it just kept on going while he wasted the afternoon. While her life came to a grinding halt after Percy left to return to his problems.
She knew that, she knew his life was still going while they were together, his problems snowballing to enormous issues. His problems did not vanish like hers did while they hung out. She could always see the worry in his green eyes, sense how close he was coming to some form of meltdown. And she wished she could help him, she desperately wished she was more than just a mortal.
Just like she wished Percy would look at her like he had Annabeth while they were in the Labyrinth. She loved him, but he did not have the time for something like that. Rachel Elizabeth Dare loved him, but she was alone.
Percy was fighting a war to keep peace for all humanity. Besides, he loved another girl anyway.