“Hey.” I’m elated she’s here with me, but I keep my cool. I want to lay into her for ghosting me yesterday, sending us all into a crazed panic looking for her, but I also don’t want to scare her off again. She left me once, I’m positive she could do it again and that terrifies me.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
I put the car into gear. “Where are we going?”
“Your place.” She pulls out her phone and begins texting someone. “I figured we watch a movie.” She looks up, worry in her eyes. “Is that still okay? That’s what we normally do, but if you don’t want me around, I’d get it.”
“Why wouldn’t I want you around, Piper? I like you. A lot”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I was worried me running off like that meant we broke up.”
A noose wraps around my heart. I’ve never been in a relationship. I hope that’s not how break ups work because I’m not ready to let Piper go. Being with her makes every day worth living. For the first time, I feel loved. “Is that what you want?”
“No! Not at all. I…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have disappeared the way I did. I didn’t mean to worry you.”
A weight has been lifted. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus. “Let’s just pretend it never happened.”
Fifteen minutes later we’re sitting on the couch scrolling through Netflix. Piper’s spread out, laying across the length of the cushions with her head in my lap. My fingers trail through her hair, a quiet moan escaping her every now and then.
Her eyes drift shut, a small smile tugging at her lips. Just when I think she’s fallen asleep, she says, “How is it that I spend one night away and my life goes back to its fucked up version of normal?” Piper rolls onto her back. “And then I come here and all of my worries melt away.
”
I shrug. “Maybe it's because you love me.”
I’m totally joking but then it dawns on me, I like Piper. Like, really like her. I'm falling head over heels and there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t even know how much she likes me back. What if this is just a fling for her and I’m over here supper attached?
Piper snort-laughs. “I’m not capable of love, Rex. But lust, that’s a horse of a different color.”
“I thought you hated horses?”
“Who told you that?”
“Cooper. Last night in the car.”
“Cooper’s got a big mouth.” She pauses, chewing on her lip. “I like you. I like the way you make me feel.”
“And how do I make you feel?”
Piper sits up, her elbow digs into my thigh. It hurts like hell, but I’m dying to know what she says. If she feels the same way I do.
“Appreciated.”
27
Piper
Jenny Cartwright is exactly what I feared she would be. Beautiful. Posh. And outgoing. Essentially, she’s everything I’m not and a huge reminder that I don’t belong with Rex. I mean, she looks like a model with her long tan legs, white Daisy-Duke’s, and pink crop-top. I look like an early 2000s Hot Topic reject most days. If this girl is Rex’s best friend, I can’t imagine what the other women he’s been with look like.
I fiddle with my phone in the front seat of Mamma T’s Cadillac pretending like I have social media or something important to look at because I don’t want to talk. I have nothing against Jenny, she’s niceish. It’s just, she’s so much like the girls at school, it’s hard to separate my hate from them and her. I know it’s wrong, and judgey but she’s probably judging me too.
“So, Jennifer,” Mamma T starts when we hit the first red light of the day.
The tiny mall that we’re headed to is a short twenty minute ride from our house. There are a total of thirty-two stop lights on the way, each one bringing me closer to the end of this ridiculous shopping trip. I hate shopping. For one, I’ve never had the money to waste. Everything I’ve ever bought came from a thrift store. When I shop, I’m in and out in fifteen minutes. There’s no point in trying on the whole store if I don’t see something I immediately like. But girls in general, Mamma T included, somehow fall into a time vortex. Hours are lost, hundreds of dollars are spent, and yet they only come home with one bag of stuff. I don’t get it.
“Oh, no, Mrs. Harris,” Jenny giggles from the backseat. “It’s Jenny. Only my mother called me Jennifer and that’s when I was in trouble.”
Both women giggle. I roll my eyes and search Pinterest for a dress style I don’t hate. It’s a hard task because I don’t wear dresses anymore, not since moving back across the tracks with bio-mom Monica. Why? For starters my ass was grabbed in passing anytime I wasn’t in my room. It was gross enough with a layer of pants between their hands and my skin. I shiver just thinking about what it would be like in a dress. Also, crashing on the bus at night in a skirt or dress would be asking for trouble. So, pants it was. This year, living with the Harris’ again I’ve allowed myself to wear our school skirts, but haven’t ventured back into dresses.