Chapter Text
Gosh! Look at her, look
What happened to her that she cut her hair? huh?
Gosh! Again look at her, look!
From head to toe, her style has changed
Why did she do that? I’m curious to death
why did she do that? Tell me
- SNSD Girls' Generation, "I Got A Boy"
“Alright, girlie. You ready to see?”
“Mmhmm.”
Thalia spun Annabeth around in the styling chair, making her reel. Either that or it was the nerves. Her palms were already sweating, though this was the most sure thing she had probably ever done in her short, seventeen-year life. This scholarship was the last chance she had at making it into a top tier school. Her grades were everything, and she meant everything. Too bad it was all riding on this moment. It didn’t help that the butterflies were prancing around her belly like it was a meadow. Her closed lids fluttered as she took a deep breath and readied herself.
“Okay. Take a peek.”
Annabeth opened her eyes and blinked a few times, trying to get adjusted to the blinding bulbs that framed the mirror in front of her. And at first, she thought Thalia was playing a prank.
There was a boy sitting in front of her - blond, curly-haired, gray-eyed - wearing her favorite blue hoodie and with a Thalia clone standing just over his shoulder. It took longer than it should have to recognize that it was actually her reflection.
Annabeth was that boy in the mirror.
“So? How’d I do?” Thalia asked with a knowing smirk.
The girl was honestly a genius - a pierced-lip, tattooed-sleeve, transformation genius.
Annabeth gaped, turning her head this way and that to get a good look at the stranger that stared back at her. “Thalia… you’re -”
“The best? Yeah, I know,” she said, pretending to inspect her nails like it ‘ain’t no thang.’
Annabeth laughed, shaking with excitement and finding it hard to breathe. Lockes of her long blonde hair sat in piles on the floor of the salon, like that part of her life was behind her. A weight had been lifted, quite literally, from her head.
This was happening. This was actually happening. There was no going back. The all-boys academy was going to have a new student starting tomorrow.
“See the makeup?" Thalia pointed with her finger. "I defined your chin and your jaw, thickened up your brows and boom - hot boy in my presence.”
Annabeth couldn’t help but beam.
“I’ll teach you how to get this look every day. They won’t even know otherwise, just so long as you don't whip your boobs out or anything.”
“Thalia, how can I ever repay you?”
She winked. “Give my brother a hard time for me.”