a/n: Drew is kind of an interesting character and she has no backstory, so I guess that's how this came out. And why must I like angst so much? :3

(formerly called your worst fatal flaw)

I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

[ mirror, mirror ]

she was never loved.

.

.

It's six A.M., but Drew Tanaka is already in the bathroom, gazing into the mirror. What she sees makes her grimace.

Dull, prosaic black hair. Pale skin with a zit on her forehead. Every morning she stares at herself in the mirror, hoping to become prettier, but every day she looks at the same ugly girl, the accidental daughter of Aphrodite. Probably none of the Greek gods would ever want her as a daughter.

She picks up her hairbrush and starts to comb through the tangles in her hair, wincing whenever it snags, and tries to think about something else.

Of course, her thoughts stray back to the usual, and Drew becomes angry again, as she's done for years, now.

She's just labeled and cast aside as another cliché popular girl, selfish and completely fake, ostentatious. She is the girl everyone wants to hate simply because she's not Piper McLean, the perfect and beautiful one, who treats her like crap along with everyone else.

Drew used to have her own personality, but she cast it aside because people didn't like her the way she was.

Letting out a heavy sigh, Drew drops her hairbrush on the counter with a clatter, not caring if the noise wakes up her siblings. Finished brushing her hair, she takes out her curling iron and begins to curl the now completely tangle-free black strands.

She wants to be accepted, admired, loved. She's had more than a few crushes over the years, but they left her counting the flower petals and daydreaming about romances that wouldn't happen. For a daughter of Aphrodite, she hasn't even been loved yet. Drew thinks of herself as the love goddess's unwanted daughter, and somehow she was just born by accident. Why else would everyone hate her like this?

The day Aphrodite claimed Drew, the goddess was probably humiliated. Even Piper said their mother was on her own side, and Drew already knows it's true.

Suddenly fury rushes through her, years of pent-up anger and resentment, some of it from Piper and her own siblings' contempt and rejection. Impulsively, she grabs the nearest object—her hairbrush—and hurls it against the bathroom wall. The loud clang resounds, but Drew is beyond caring as the shattered pieces fall onto the ground. Her fists are clenched tight, white.

Maybe she can be a brat sometimes, but that's only because she was never loved. And that's why she never will love—all she's learned to do is hate. The reason Drew is such a dictator is that she wants people to listen to her, for once. She's so artificial because she's afraid of being judged for who she truly is.

She takes a breath.

The anger suddenly drains out of her as quickly as it came, leaving her empty and cold inside. And the bitterness eventually fades as well, so she goes over and picks up the broken pieces of her hairbrush with a regretful, even contrite, heart for everything she's done. She feels the sting of tears, maybe despair for her life?

Then she peers at herself closely in the mirror, reaches for the bag of makeup by her side. And with a shaking hand and tears springing to her eyes, Drew Tanaka applies her mascara at six in the morning, while her siblings are asleep, because they don't have to worry about pleasing others while they, unlike her, are all already perfect.

She doesn't do it because she wants to, but because she has to.