futility
"Most people are better in the abstract"
In the bare mornings in the shower, when she gets up early before everyone else, there is always that unspoken hope she might find Piper alone there, brushing her teeth. Alex will then throw her towel over her shoulder and nod, smiling despite herself, her voice raspy with sleep, "Good morning, kid."
Alex will hope for that slightly unhinged, aching look that sometimes comes into Piper's eyes. When it does come she swallows hard and her breath goes shallow. She might let Piper come on first, sometimes shyly, her hands fumbling, and they climb into the shower stall together, strip each other, and then hold each other close, cautiously, their breasts pressing against one another as the water comes down, and she will hope for Piper's hands to run through her hair and close over her breasts and draw her in and then mercifully kiss her. Sometimes they even fuck there, quietly and gently, the way they used to in the hot running water a long time ago.
Hope had marked her childhood. There'd been all the futile hoping for her mother's happiness, and her father's presence, hope that she hadn't even really acknowledged until it was gone. Then there were the other, small things any kid might hope for: pocket money, school-time friendship, a nice house, the right pop tarts, love, acceptance, bat-girl stickers.
Then there was Piper. Letting herself hope for a person was something Alex had never done in adulthood, for all the obvious reasons, but now that she had, it was with the most ardent desperation.
Over the years it had come and gone in quick, sickening waves: the first time, that sudden moment she realized, for the first time, how much she cared for that meek small-town girl she had intended to fuck and use as a mule. She didn't remember the exact moment, but she remembered the lurch of protectiveness, one she had before only known concerning her mother, and the wide-eyed stare that had caused it.
And then, even worse, it had come when her heart shuddered and sank sweetly that one time, one late evening, after they'd had sex on the carpet during a city heat wave and were sprawled out naked on the floor in a puddle of sweat, smoking and eating popsicles, when Piper had given her that certain look, the one that made Alex realize she was falling hopelessly in love, the powerless kind of love - and to top it all off, with someone like that. Someone like one of those terrifying rich girls from junior high.
(She'd always secretly crushed a little on the worst of those horrible girls, in that masochistic way only a gay teen might. Turning rich girls like them into mules and enabling the addiction of others felt like a kind of pay-back for all the shit she'd had to take in as a kid, and it made the whole job a lot easier, too easy, really.)
Later, she thought that it had probably been right around those moments that she'd already been sentenced. If she hadn't fallen for Piper, then losing Piper would never have been so hard. Maybe her mother's death might have derailed her for a while, but she wouldn't have lost it like that, gone off the way she had, doing her own drugs, sleeping with as many girls as she could, trying to forget. She would never have let her business slip if it weren't for Piper, really. Or that's what she told herself.
Hope was the quick, sickening stream that outlined her life. Alex was awfully aware of how it glimmered inside her, could always be seen, somehow, from behind her eyes, whenever Piper stood nearby. Even with her hair stringy and her skin pale, every little grimace and dimple seemed precious about Piper. The darkish eye-brows. The familiar little aggressive glint that could be seen, sometimes, behind those pale blue eyes. Alex tried looking away whenever she saw too much of all that.
One time at night she wakes to find Piper crawling into her bunk, her small frame clawing and shaking. Alex sits up, startled, and Piper shrinks back. "I'm sorry," she whispers, "I know, I know, I just -"
Alex can hardly make out her face in the dark. "It's alright," she whispers back, "C'mere."
They fold into each other, Piper's face buried under Alex's chin. "Bad dream?" Alex asks. She is awfully aware of her own breath, which has shallowed again.
"I guess. I don't actually know."
"Miss me?"
"More, like, need you." Piper raises her head up, her forehead bumping lightly against Alex's chin, and they kiss, fumbling but tenderly, in the dark. Then Alex feels Pipers lips on her cheek and forehead before she rolls to the side. They try to make out each other's faces in the dark. It is quiet. The red-neck on the next cot makes a gurgling noise in her sleep. Piper crawls in under the blanket beside Alex and sighs into the nape of Alex's neck.
"You remember that one time you went to Russia and didn't even tell me? I couldn't reach you for days on end and was a complete mess when you came back."
"That was pretty early on in, though."
"Yeah, but still. You kept on doing that. And I'd have to go on and pretend I didn't mind. And that I didn't miss you. You were a terrible girlfriend, Alex."
"Ah, but only because I was too shy to believe you actually liked me that much."
"Bullshit. Oh man, what a load of bullshit. You loved it! You loved having that kind of power over me."
"I guess I wish I still did."
"I'm sure you do." She snuggles under the blanket and slips her hand under Alex's shirt. Her fingers trace Alex's stomach, ribs, and breasts. She cups one of them with her hand, right over Alex's thudding heart, and then settles down, suddenly much calmer, and falls asleep. Alex can smell Piper's hair, which smells just like Piper's skin, like something that is not prison at all, and her breath shudders. She pulls Piper close. Her heart is still thumping wildly under Piper's hand.
In the morning, Piper is gone. They meet up just a little before lunch, share a quick, understanding glance, and then take turns getting it off on one of the benches in the chapel. Alex holds Piper on her lap, one hand up her shirt, the other up inside her and they fuck pressing their foreheads against each other. They almost manage to not make a sound. Alex has removed her glasses, and all she can see is Piper, the rest of the chapel seeming a kind of peach-coloured blur. When Piper comes with a whimper, her cunt clenches like a little mouth around Alex's fingers as if she can't stand letting her go. They slump into each other, sticky and wet all over, breathing quickly and quietly, as they've grown accustomed to. Piper rests her head on Alex's shoulder. Alex is still holding Piper's cunt in her moist hand. She thinks about how it feels like the fluttering wings of a small, hungry animal. Piper suddenly giggles, the way she does when she reminisces. For a moment, Alex thinks she might have been reading her thoughts.
"Remember that strap on we used to use? Our favorite one?" Piper says.
"You mean that turquoise glittery one?"
Alex chuckles, and they kiss. Even their cheeks are moist. "I think about it a lot, actually."
"The things we did to each other with that thing. Whatever happened to it?"
"I threw it out, of course."
"No! Why?"
"Would you have liked me to use it on someone else?"
"Alex."
"Come on. It wasn't like I was counting on you coming back ever."
Piper shifts her head on Alex's shoulder but doesn't say anything, certainly not what Alex wishes for her to say. But at least she doesn't nod and say something Alex doesn't want to hear, either.
"Come on," Alex says after a while, "we've probably missed lunch by now."
Piper tightens her arms around Alex's back. "It doesn't matter. I'm not really hungry anyway."
"Yeah? Well maybe you aren't, kid. But I am. A little self-centered, eh?"
They both giggle. Then Piper lifts her head to look at Alex. She says, "Alex."
"What."
Piper looks away and says nothing. But it's just another one of those little things, there are several, that get Alex's hopes up.
On a day she doesn't run into Piper anywhere, Alex is folding clean white sheets when she remembers a conversation she'd had with her mother:
They were sitting at the kitchen table of their old house, which was a better house now, fixed up by all the drug money. Alex's mom was wearing nice expensive earrings now, Paris-bought, matching her eyes. They were sharing a bottle of beer and smoking cigarettes, the way they had since Alex's teens.
"So this girl you brought over the other day," her mother says, "she's not straight, is she?"
"Says she's bisexual. Can't relate to it, but that doesn't really matter, does it. We do the stuff straight girls wouldn't do, you know?"
"Good," says her mother and winks, "You know what they say about straight girls."
"You mean, what I say about straight girls."
"Sure."
They both giggle. "She seems like a smart cookie, alright. And all happy and young. Anyway, if you two really are so crazy about each other, then you need to start taking time off from your big business plans. You can be such a loner, Alex. You're a good kid, but money isn't everything."
"Sure mom."
"I mean it."
"Yeah."
"Don't fuck it up."
"I won't."
The memory made Alex wince. All the grand plans. And somehow she'd made them all go wrong, and the only place she could point where she'd actually let them all go wrong was that point where she'd not trusted herself to be enough for anyone, or wanted too much, and could not just let things be as they were. She counted through her thoughts several times, planning on explaining them to Piper, hoping all the annoying introspection might be the last and final argument, once and for all, that they needed to be together.
But then she found Piper in the library, applying for a marriage certificate. Well, shit. Hope can really fuck you over sometimes.