AN: I am sorry for the delay yet again. I really suck a writing at a fast pace. I hope you all can stand the waiting. I'm not happy how this turned out. The direction of the story is going as I want to, I just don't feel good about how I captured it... It's a hot mess. I guess my lack of inspiration has something to do with it. Ahwell...
Thanks for reading. Love always.
Don't say goodbye, it tastes so bad
They waited until the darkness clung to them like a sticky mat, the frost beginning to cover the ground like a fog rolling in over a calm lake, the dead leaves crunching under their feet when they emerged from the rock they'd been hiding behind. Their breaths visible as it slowly ascended higher up in the raw atmosphere.
There was no urgency in their steps when they made their way back to... somewhere. The fear of the man still being present was chased away by the passing minutes that turned into an hour or two. Neither one of them was really sure where to go, so Piper acted like the compass that time since she had lead Alex to the park in the first place.
Piper clung to Alex's hand, convincing herself that the contact would make the other teen stay and not go back to her mother. It was of course naïve to think that, but that was all Piper could do when exhaustion started to creep over her, when the adrenaline wasn't there to feed her energy. At that moment, more than ever, her mind was a swirling mess. She was in despair, numb from just the clinging and suffocating feeling of it. How could she even begin to process the chase? Would she be a target for something since she had been seen with the raven-haired girl? What would Alex be "welcomed" home with? Worse fists and harsher words? Would she tell her mother? It was all questions and no answers in her brain and scenarios brought to vivid life by them. Every time a new thought hit her, her pulse sped up and her whole body tensed up as if it would actually happen. And she couldn't for the life of her understand how she had the energy to feed the scenarios. She didn't understand how she didn't just collapse then and there on the ground with the lack of energy she felt. Maybe it was the raven-haired girl that kept her from completely giving up. She kept telling herself that Alex needed her. She had to be strong, because she wasn't the one who was having a hard time. She wasn't the one who had a shitty situation at home. Alex was the one who needed someone. She needed to fight on her bloody knees for Alex and it didn't matter that she couldn't cope. She just had to. It gave Piper a sliver of energy, enough to at least not completely drop dead down on the ground.
It had taken some time, but eventually Alex had stopped shaking like a frightened animal. It was like she had broken the surface of an icy lake and was able to breathe again, but the state she entered wasn't more preferable. It was a silent surrender. A resignation from her rebellion, forcing her to abandon her new found safe haven. She was giving up something that had been good.
As their heavy feet hit the ground, she could feel the subtle squeezes from Alex's hand. As if she was reassuring herself that the blonde was still there by her side. Piper felt that she needed that; like she was some use to the raven-haired girl, even in her numb and slightly apathetic state of mind. It felt like it was the only thing she could do to help Alex. Piper guessed that that was as the only comforting feeling she was getting at that moment. Immediately, she hated herself for thinking about her own contentment instead of Alex's.
When they got out of the park, some kind of energy seemed to shift. Piper wasn't the compass anymore; the raven-haired girl took over the position of the navigator, walking a step ahead of Piper. It was like Alex realized that she had to take the lead because Piper couldn't lead them to their inevitable parting. The unfairness of the situation hung heavy on her shoulders and she felt like something was putting pressure on her chest. She was supposed to be the rock. It was Alex who was supposed to cling to her, depending on Piper to lead her to safety, not the other way around. But once they got to the house, it would only be a matter of time before the other would leave and Piper just couldn't bare that thought, no matter how much energy she would have. She didn't want to reach the end of their time together and Alex's words from earlier, which still rung loudly in her ears, told Piper that she had already made up her mind about returning home.
Even if she was numb, a chest constricting thought flooded her paralyzed emotion system as she saw the front porch of her house. Maybe this was the only place Alex had felt really safe in for a long time. And she was about to walk away from that. They both were equally powerless to do anything about the imminent separation.
She didn't even know why they had walked back to her house. Alex had nothing of hers left there, besides of the memories they had created. What was the point of walking back there? Was it so that the raven-haired girl could feel what a safe haven felt like for maybe the last time? Maybe to remind herself that there was actually something good in the world? Whatever the reason, they were all equally tragic.
With her feet weighing like two large cement blocks, they walked up to the door. Piper unlocked it and stepped into the dark hallway, closely followed by the other. It was in that dark narrow room that they let go of each other's hands. Piper switched into her normal routine, the only thing that could numb the more suffocating numbness she was feeling, turning on the lights in the hallway, but regretting it almost immediately. The light felt so intruding, like it would shatter the already fragile ice that was keeping them both afloat.
Piper couldn't help but feel like she was slowly shrinking; her skin becoming too big for her and she felt so incredibly small, as if the world had started to outgrow her at a rapid pace, like there was no one in the world that could make her feel safe or make her feel like she was home again. However, there was one person that could, but that didn't feel like the band aid it was supposed to be. It felt more like someone was about to rip duct-tape off of a huge burn blister, ripping off something that had become a piece of her, only leaving a fresh and burning scar in its wake.
It felt so final, like she was being forced away from her home by unforgiving flames of a merciless fire that had rained down from the sky; something she couldn't control no matter how hard she would cling to it. Piper felt for the first time in her life how hard it really was to not be in control of something.
As the time ticked by and they stood motionless, loneliness started to fill her every pore. It was the worst kind of isolation, making it hard to breathe. All the feelings needed to stop. Alex just had to stay. Even if Piper knew that she had a flare for the over dramatic, it was what she felt. It was real. She had to make a last desperate attempt to cure her oncoming aloneness even if it would sound pathetic. The blonde was beyond caring if it would. How could she care about something, in reality, so meaningless as sounding pathetic? She had a need, and she would ask for it no matter how it would come out.
"Can't you stay? Please?" Piper struggled to finally get out the words. It hurt to say, because it was so hopeless to even ask. There was only one answer to that question and they both knew it. She felt like a little child being abandoned by their parent, but at least she asked. Maybe it made it all worse, since she saw the apologetic sadness shine through Alex's eyes. There was no need for the question to be answered.
Piper's eyes were roaring river's of unshed tears, waiting to tip over the edge of a cliff. Wasn't there anything else she could do? Was Alex just hoping that Piper would forget the whole event that had played over the past days? How could that even be possible? The raven-haired girl was smart enough to know that it wasn't even a possibility. There had to be something that could make them keep the bond. One does not tie bonds as strong as the one they had, just to let it burn to pieces in acid of abandonment.
All the things they had actually managed to experience during such a short interaction would be etched to her forever. Not etched to her memory, but actually carved into her whole being. She felt slightly different. One cannot possibly hope to be fundamentally changed over the course of a few days, but it was like she had gotten a taste of what she really was, like Alex had opened a door inside of her she didn't know was there and open doors comes with new possibilities. Finally there was another way of thinking that didn't make her so damn tired. She just hadn't realized that it actually drained her to be around those so called friends. But Alex made her come alive with a subtle vibrant energy. There had to be some way to save it, to continue it.
"Can I at least have your number?" Piper stammered out, choking on the tears still stuck in her throat. That was her last hope. Her last hope of doing something right, her last hope of being of help to Alex and her last hope of saving herself from the loneliness that was so slowly trying to strangle her. I didn't matter for what purpose she did it. She needed Alex. How can a person become so dependent of another after such a short amount of time? Was it even possible? Had Piper been so lonely to begin with that she chose to cling onto the first person available? No, she had never felt as alone as she did at the moment, knowing that at any second, Alex would walk out of her door. If she had just settled for someone, she wouldn't feel so freaking broken about the other leaving. So, she put her last bit of faith into hoping that Alex would give her her number.
"Sure." Piper swallowed hard, feeling how her head became lighter, relief washing over her like gigantic waves of the ocean hitting a shoreline. Even if the relief had disappeared as soon as she remembered that she would be left soon.
With shaky hands she handed her phone over to the raven-haired girl and watched as the other's fingers typed in her number. It was something. It had to count for something, but the ball of communication had landed in Alex's corner and Piper would just have to trust her to keep it up.
They were still standing in the hallway, Alex on her knees slowly tying her black converse, dragging out the last bit of time before the inevitable. Awkwardness hung thick in the air. They both were asking the same question, how are we going to say goodbye? How are we ever going to cut the tie that we so tightly tied together? It practically oozed out of them. The drowsiness of their movements, the fumbling of fingers, like they had gone numb from sudden coldness, coldness brought to them by oncoming loneliness.
Piper chewed on her bottom lip when she watched Alex rise from her kneeling position. In her head she was screaming, please don't leave, please don't leave,please don't leave me here and she was sure the mute words in her head resonated through her eyes, because she could see the echoed answer in Alex's pale green ones. And it hurt like nothing else had ever done. Piper couldn't help herself as she wrapped her arms around the other's neck and held her tight, tighter than she had ever held onto something in her entire life.
There was no eye contact or words exchanged between them, because neither one of them could stand to hear what they really meant. Goodbye. It is so hard to say goodbye when one is clinging to something so hard that it's like ones life is depending on that.
"I-I'm sorry, Piper..." Alex whispered in the most quiet voice Piper had ever heard someone speak in. The blonde just shook her head, not being able to speak, which she hated. She wanted the raven-haired girl to know that she wasn't mad at her, that she didn't blame her. Piper just wanted her to stay for a million and one reasons. She wished that she could've let Alex know that, but her numbness laughed in her face and denied her that privilege. She just hoped that Alex knew.
When the door finally closed, Piper turned around, ready to go up to her room and loom around there, but she paused. She didn't feel like walking up to her room. In fact, she didn't feel like doing anything. How would she go about doing something normal, when it felt like the only normal thing had just walked out of the door? And how could it fucking be that after just a few days her normal had shifted so massively that Piper knew she would never ever feel the same again.
Unsure of how to continue with even her next breath, Piper walked into the kitchen, but found no meaning there, so she entered the living room. It turned out to be her biggest mistake yet. In the room sat their forgotten mugs of tea, taunting her with the reminder that the girl that had once used one of them was gone. There was no way to tell if Alex would actually answer any of Piper's future attempts to contact her. So just those fucking mugs, made the tears burn even hotter in her eyes. She turned on her heel, not being able to exist if she looked at them any longer.
Everything in her hurt. Not only just physically but mentally. Fighting back tears was one big battle meant to be lost. The body can only take so much before it breaks into tiny pieces of ash.
Not even bothering to put the mugs in the sink, she turned around and walked up to her room, practically dragging her feet behind her. She laid down on her bed, feeling like a wounded animal, left to die on the highway.
Staring at the wall in the darkness, slowly, Piper finally succumbed to the lump in her throat. It was a mess, not having pulled the plug in quite some time, the tears just came. She was so glad that she was alone. Her sobs were loud and ugly and she lost control. Luckily, there was no strength left in her body to flail and hit things. She was just an apathetic heap on her bed, crying her soul out. Why did she have to go out into her backyard that night? Why did she have to find Alex out there, so battered and bruised? Why did she have to take her in? Why didn't she do more? Why did she let Alex leave so easily?
Piper couldn't help but hate herself more when all the questions screamed inside of her and the tears wouldn't stop coming.
AN: I'm so sorry if you feel like this is dragging on, this always happens when I write. I guess I love catching tiny moments and chop them into too tiny pieces and sometimes it gets messy...
From now on I guess I'm going to cover a little bit more time as a chapter progresses and more will happen that isn't just in their little bubble, which I totally burst (oops). I hope you all still like it.
