Peace Maker - Chapter 181

Antonio stared at Annabeth for a moment, his head tilting to the side slightly. “You promise?”

Annabeth chuckled, nodding her head. “I promise,” she replied, her eyes looking away from him down to the plate of food. The gleam in her eyes dimmed. “I’ll try…” She picked up the sandwich and her smile reduced to a thin line as she watched some tuna slip out and fall to the plate. ‘I doubt that…’ she thought to herself, ‘I’ll try once… that should be enough.’

Antonio observed her for a moment, looking at her eyes as she bit into the sandwich. ‘They’re blank…’ he thought to himself. He stared for another moment before sighing and leaned back in his chair. “You’re not going to, are you?” he muttered.

Annabeth looked up at him, alarm showing in her eyes when they locked with his eyes. A shiver ran down her spine. His eyes were dark now… murky in a way as they stared at her, piercing into her mind with a sharp gaze. ‘He did it again…’ she thought to herself.

Antonio shifted in his seat, leaning forward and placing both of his elbows on the table, and resting his head in his hands. There, they maintained eye contact for a moment, Antonio’s bright eyes now holding a murky undertone that took in her every feature and movement on her face and in her eyes. He was observing her, in taking her every motion.

Annabeth looked away from him, biting into her sandwich again. Her hand rested in front of her mouth as she spoke. Calmly, her eyes peeked over her hands, once again catching Antonio’s gaze. They lingered in his eyes for a moment before slipping away, a slight smile forming on her face. ‘There’s no beating around the bush this time, huh…’ she thought to herself as she looked over her hands again, swallowing the food in her mouth.

She let out a sigh and placed the sandwich on the plate, her posture straightened and she tilted her head to the right, her eyes staring into Antonio’s. She smiled, “What did you expect?”

A look of confusion appeared on Antonio’s face and he shifted back into his seat, his back touching the chair. “What?” he replied.

Annabeth’s head tilted back, her eyes remaining pinned on Antonio. “What did you expect?” she repeated, “did you really think I was going to comply with your words?”

Antonio flinched, shuddering a little. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. It was overtaking him. Her eyes, her gaze, her smile. They were different now, they held the same blank feeling in them but now it was like a black hole, the smile on her face holding some type of teasing smirk. Like she was mocking him, her eyes drawing him in and drowning him in a feeling of discomfort and confusion.

It was like she had cut it off, like she knew the stare he was giving her, like she was simply entertaining him for a moment. Allowing him to understand her before filling him up with confusion, messing up every single thing that he felt like he had understood before shutting him out completely, twisting up the little understanding he had formed around her.

Antonio shuddered again. It was scary. Her eyes, the void they seemed to hold now. But…

“What? You didn’t expect that from me?” Annabeth smiled, “Nobody ever does from a pretty little lady now do they?”

“No… that’s not what this is,” Antonio immediately replied. It was different this time, like he was walking on glass rather than eggshells but despite that, there was no way he was going to let himself be misunderstood. “It’s just… Your change in mood when you said that, it was different from usual.”

Annabeth chuckled, biting into a cake. “You say that as if you know what my usual is.”

Antonio flinched. There was a slight stab that he felt in his heart.

“Don’t misunderstand, my words are usually crafted, to begin with. It’s not like what you thought before was incorrect. Your guesses were right, you understood just a little bit. But you will never be right either, the concepts you form around me will never be correct,” she smiled, swallowing her cake, “now with that in mind, do you think you can make me make a promise when you barely know anything about me in the first place?”

Antonio slowly shook his head. “No.”

“Right. You can show concern for me, you can tell me things that you want me to abide by or listen to, but I never have any need to actually listen to you,” Annabeth continued, “why was it that when I showed that little side of me, when I showed what I was really doing with your concerns, you immediately thought it was ‘different’ that my usual self. My usual self wouldn’t have listened to you either. My usual self is me still.”

Antonio listened to her words, chills still running through his body.

“Do you think I can really be myself in places like this?” Annabeth asked. “Do you think that these watching eyes that look at my figure, the way I act and my facial expressions will allow me to be myself? Don’t make me make a promise that I wasn’t even able to keep to myself, let alone one that you want me to listen to for the rest of time. It’s selfish.”

Antonio flinched, looking away from Annabeth.

“Yes… it is selfish. You’re making me make a promise that’ll make you happy when you watch me abide without thinking about the reasons why I chose to act the way I did to begin with. Being myself is not as easy as you wish it to be, and me trying to make you happy by doing that hurts me more than just making you feel content. You don’t think about how their stares will change when I’m myself? How they’ll grow more scrutinizing, how they’ll begin to demean me for being untrained,” Annabeth chuckled, “in the end, you’ll tell me to hide myself a bit more and when you realize you were wrong and start receiving criticism, you’ll blame me for allowing my true actions to show.”

Antonio flinched, his eyes darting to Annabeth immediately.

“What?” Annabeth smiled, cocking her head slightly, “am I wrong?”

“Yes,” Antonio immediately replied. “You are wrong.”

“Really?” Annabeth replied. “In what way?”

“You’re doing the same thing that I made the mistake of doing. You’re assuming my actions based on the reactions you think I’ll make, without thinking of how I would have actually behaved.”

Annabeth’s smile dimmed to a line and she continued her piercing gaze on Antonio. She was asking him to continue. In her stare was a silent command, like she was asking him to prove himself.

“I admit, that was selfish of me,” Antonio nodded. “I got ahead of myself. Fooled myself to believe I understood you based on the little things I could notice and then tried to change you by making you make adjustments to yourself that I believed will help you for the better based on my own thoughts. But you can’t assume that in the end, that is what I’m going to do because you don’t know me either.”

Annabeth continued to watch him, listening to his words but her stare didn’t grow any less blank. It was still empty. Still a deep void that was sucking Antonio in, filling him with nervousness and uncertainty.

“As much as it may soothe you to make these judgments about me because that is how you prefer to see me, that’s not what I would have actually done because you don’t know me enough to assume that,” Antonio pressed. “I understand my limits enough to know that I overstepped there but I was serious. I only make someone make promises when I truly believe that is what will benefit them rather than what I believe will benefit them but then again I don’t know you that well so that was wrong of me. But, I take responsibility for the actions I make.”

“Really?”

“Yes really. I understand you don’t trust me enough to believe that, but it’s true. I would never walk away from a mistake that I made and despite you not knowing me that well, I think you know that too,” Antonio continued. “You can tell. I know you can but you’re choosing to ignore it.”

Annabeth cocked her head to the right. He was right. She could tell. She had been feeling it, the differences in him than the others she had met. And based on that little feeling, she knew he would take responsibility and that he probably didn’t mean it in that way but… she had no time to trust. She had no chances to waste on believing another person other than herself. Especially not in a society like this.

Antonio let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry. Before I try to make you believe the words that come out of my mouth, I’m sorry. I apologize for overreaching but if that was something… if my words were something that you wouldn’t accept, I would rather you tell me straight up. It’s much more insulting for you to say you accept a promise when you know you’re just going to break it. I take my promises very seriously just like I was seriously concerned when you said that.”

“Why?” Annabeth asked, looking up at Antonio, “why were you concerned? It’s not something common for ladies to think so why are you concerned.”

“It’s because it’s not something that’s common that I’m concerned when I hear you say it,” Antonio muttered, “I just… couldn’t let you say something like that.. It didn’t feel right.”