(this chapter is dedicated to my flop of a sister. take this as your late Christmas present idk)
For once, Piper was in class before Jason arrived.
After a particularly exhausting student council meeting, he'd tried his best to gather his wits for the presentation ahead. The deadlines of other projects and assignments weighed heavily on his mind as he slipped his phone into his pocket and walked into class.
"You ready?" Piper smiled briefly at him as he sat down, shuffling through her cue cards. She seemed to be going for a more put-together look for their presentation that day, with the absence of her usual tattered jeans and boots. Instead, she was wearing a black sweater with 'I'd rather listen to music than to you' on the front in Comic Sans over a grey flannel, and her jeans were considerably clean and unwrinkled. If he was hard-pressed to do so, he might admit that she didn't look bad at all.
Piper gave him a once-over with her unsettling multicoloured eyes. In his less occupied states, he sometimes wondered how someone's eyes could flash from blue to grey to green to brown in a split second. "You look like crap," she concluded. "Have you eaten at all today?"
He belatedly realised that he hadn't. "Um, no." Piper pulled a granola bar out of the front pocket of her bag. "Eat up, Grace. I'm not having you ruining this presentation because your energy level is only at fifty percent."
"I can't," Jason said reluctantly. "No eating in class." Piper rolled her eyes expressively. "I can't believe you. Just duck under the table and eat it."
He shook his head and darted out of the classroom, hurriedly finishing the bar just as he saw the teacher head down the corridor. "Thanks," he muttered to her. "Don't get used to it," she replied. "I know."
"And that is why we believe gender inequality is a pressing issue that needs to be fixed in today's society," Piper finished. "Any questions?" Jason added.
The usual silence that followed every presentation prior echoed around the room.
"That's all the presentations for the day, then!" The teacher exclaimed in apparent relief as they moved back to their seats. Jason rolled up the poster and deftly bound it with an elastic band. Piper had started to toy with the ends of her hair, attempting to run her fingers through the tangled ends, a nervous habit he couldn't help but notice. He watched her subtly out of the corner of his eye, privately thinking that her hair looked just fine, though he knew that if he were to voice that opinion, he would be more likely to get a lecture on how he shouldn't dictate how a girl chose to present herself than to achieve any actual intended effect.
"And the results will be released at the end of the week." The teacher checked her watch. "There's ten minutes left to the bell, so I'll leave you to sit quietly in class while I bring your essays down." She strode out of the room quickly.
Piper slung her bag onto one shoulder. "I would say nice working with you, but it's been fairly average, so…" The gleam in her eyes was the only hint that she was only joking. Then again, one could never be sure with Piper.
"Yeah." He had an inexplicable urge to want to say more than that, and tried to source around for a conversation topic, so that the end of this project might not mean the end of their- well, whatever it was. "Um- is everything ok with err- Jane and all?" He could tell by the way the light in her eyes dimmed that he'd hit a sensitive topic, and wanted to smack his forehead in exasperation. Of all topics, he had to go and choose that one. Well done, Jason.
Piper played with the hem of her sweater for a few agonisingly long moments before replying. "She was mad, obviously. I've never liked her, opportunistic gold digger she is. All she cares is that my father gets to as many premieres as possible so that it'll better his reputation and increase her pay."
Jason nodded sympathetically. He too had had his share of witnessing many of such money-driven individuals in his father's company. Wealth had a way of making men its puppets. "She even wants to send me to boarding school to keep me hidden away, because she thinks that having a teenage daughter in the press will take the actual attention off him," Piper continued. She drained the water from her plastic bottle and scored a perfect hit into the bin. "I don't think she gets that I've never ever wanted fame at all."
"I know," he agreed. "Some adults are so blind to the fact that what they think isn't always the truth."
Piper eyed him curiously. "That's meanest thing I've ever heard you say about anyone. Good job."
He flushed in spite of himself and tried hastily to backtrack. "I mean, they can be a bit wrong, sometimes, but they're just doing what they think is best for us-"
"Oh, hush." Piper laughed, showing her teeth. Her eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled. "That's not a bad thing. To think badly of someone, I mean. As long as you don't generalise or stereotype, it's fine. If you refuse to see any flaws in everyone, you're going to be one miserable person. You've got to be honest with yourself- if anyone is treating you like crap, they're not worth your time and you should drop them from your life."
Jason shook his head in wonder. "I never got the impression you were this wise."
She turned pink and tried to bat the compliment away vaguely. Clearly, she wasn't used to receiving compliments, though he thought that by right, she should receive them often. "I spend a lot of time on the Internet. You learn things about society and morals from there. If you go to the right places, that is. And from songs- most songs are just mainstream and shallow, about heartbreaking and partying and such. But some songs really have hidden meanings that are really deep and actually reflects a lot about society."
Her eyes lit up when she talked about music. He'd always thought that it was amazing to see someone talk about the things they were passionate in. People were always so much more interesting when they had interests and passions. And her- to him, Piper McLean was an incredibly interesting- and intriguing- person.
In the hopes of getting her to continue her discourse into music, he asked. "What sort of music do you like to listen to?" She grinned- this question was an obvious favourite with her- and launched into an animated talk.
…
Leo came up to Piper as she was on her way to the cafeteria for lunch that way, nearly making her jump out of her skin when he sneaked up on her and clapped her on the back.
"Beauty Queen!"
"God, Leo! You scared the living daylights out of me!" Piper exclaimed as she shoved him, none too gently either.
"Be on your guard at all times…" Leo said in a mock serious tone, making his voice deep and rumbly, which sounded comical coming from a boy with the build of an elf. Piper couldn't help cracking a smile.
The lunch table they sat at was extra crowded that day- Travis Stoll slid casually into the seat next to Katie with his brother, Connor, five minutes into lunch, and Frank and Hazel joined the table together. "My word, I feel like more of a third wheel than usual," Leo complained. "At least I'm not the only dude at this table anymore."
Piper belatedly remembered her bet with Katie, and silently slid a five-dollar note over to her. Katie grinned as she pocketed it, wiggling her eyebrows at Leo. "Thank goodness you got a date at the last minute, for I am now five dollars richer."
"You two bet on me?" Leo said indignantly. "How was I to know that you'd be able to get someone to go out with you? God, I wonder how much money you paid her," Piper jested playfully.
"Calypso agreed to go with me out of her own free will!" Leo protested. "And I bet she had serious regrets about that," Piper muttered under her breath, but loud enough for everyone at the table to hear, making most of them scoff. "We're going on a second date tomorrow," Leo said proudly. At that, everyone stared. There was a brief silence.
"Oh wow," Travis said. He was the first to recover and went back to eat. From what Piper heard about the Stoll brothers, who were both on the football team, they had a reputation for being mischievous and rebellious, which Piper didn't think would exactly be Katie's type. Katie, who was responsible and down-to-earth, looked unlikely to go for a guy who was such a troublemaker (he and his brother apparently broke the school record for the number of detentions given in one year). They still weren't together, much to her chagrin. Katie had violently denied everything to do with him, and had insisted that they went to the dance 'as friends'. Though, from a first-hand recount from Lacey, they looked 'more than friendly'. Opposites attract, she presumed.
"I really need to meet this Calypso character now," Lacey shook her head. "She has to be the most tolerant person on earth." Katie laughed. "To put up with Leo, yes. We're talking about the person who messed with my gaming controls so he could win Mario Kart. Sneaky little-" "Oh yeah!" Leo interrupted her. "Have you told Piper about the gaming session today?"
This was obviously an attempt to get Katie to stop venting her annoyance at him, which worked as she immediately invited Piper to her house that afternoon. "We've invited quite a few people! Some of them not by my invite," she threw a dirty look to Lacey. "I invited Will," Lacey said, by way of explanation.
Piper felt her cheeks heat up. "Young love," Leo sighed, batting his eyelashes at her. "So pure, so sweet-"
Piper, whose face had reddened completely, certainly didn't have anything pure or sweet to say to him when she flicked a bit of mayonnaise from her sandwich onto his face.
"Beauty Queen!" Piper had already run away, laughing loudly. "Be on your guard at all times, Leo!"
…
The corridors were nearly deserted when Piper emerged out of the staff room, scowling.
She'd been called to see their math teacher after school that day, apparently because her math results were 'abominable' and 'in serious need of fixing'. After nearly half an hour of shrill lecturing, which ended with a threat to call her parents (parent, in her case) if she were to score less than a sixty percent on their next test.
She'd told the others to go on ahead without her, so Leo had messaged her the address. She'd told Jane that she was going to a friend's house (true), and that her friend would fetch her back (not true). Piper intended to return on foot, and say that her friend had dropped her off at the next street. Katie's house wasn't that far from her own, after all.
Because it was a Monday, most clubs didn't have practice sessions. Most students had left the school already. Piper, who was balancing a stack of extra math notes and her textbooks, was struggling with the lock on her locker. It was refusing to budge. After one particularly hard yank, the locker door burst open, making Piper stagger back and drop all of her notes.
Piper said a very unladylike word (there wasn't anyone around to hear her anyway) as she stooped to gather the scattered notes. As she was reaching to grab another pile of notes, someone bent down next to her and wordlessly gathered all the papers in one deft movement. She looked up to the face of the female student council president, and smiled gratefully as she took the papers from her.
"Homework?" Reyna asked, her voice sounding a little stiff, as if she wasn't used to making conversation. Apart from the occasional nods and greetings when they passed each other in the corridors, Piper usually didn't talk much to the dark-haired, uptight girl. "Extra practice. I'm not doing so well in Math," Piper said ruefully, then wondered if Reyna could even relate. Surely the president of the student council could never have achieved anything less than an A.
Reyna tucked a strand of hair behind her hair, and nodded non-committedly. "Good luck with that, then. Going home to study now?" Piper shook her head. "I'm going over to Katie's. She invited a bunch of people over to play video games."
"Have fun, then." She turned around abruptly to walk away, and even though she walked with her usual confident stride, Piper couldn't help but feel that she might be a little lonely. She made a split second decision. "Uh- do you want to come over too?"
Reyna looked astonished. Piper briefly remembered her first impression of Reyna, how she'd thought that the word 'fun' probably wasn't in her vocabulary. She began to think that it was a mistake, but then a hesitant smile broke over the other girl's face. "If it's okay with the rest of your friends."
…
Katie's house was a five-minute drive from school. Piper sat shotgun in Reyna's car, which was a small black Honda. She and Reyna occasionally made small talk as they approached the quiet neighbourhood near the school. The houses here were fairly small ones, each one different and unique, a mash of bright colours and sounds. Piper loved it.
Katie's house was painted a pastel blue, with all types of flowers blooming in the garden lining the stone path. A white picket fence surrounded the perimeter of the house and lace curtains blew in the autumn breeze, and a bright red bicycle was parked next to the door. A hand-painted sign on the front door read 'Gardner'. A few garden gnomes stood on the porch, where a small patio table and wooden chairs were. In short, it was the prettiest house Piper had ever seen.
She pressed the doorbell. Miranda, Katie's sister, opened the door. "They're in the basement" was all she said before she disappeared back up the stairs.
Loud yells were coming from the basement as Piper pushed the door open to find Connor throwing his control onto the floor in frustration as Leo punched the air in victory. "Yeah!" he crowed. "That's what Uncle Leo's made out of!" Piper rolled her eyes as she closed the door behind her. Katie looked up. "Hi Piper! Hi Reyna!" she said cheerfully from her position at the foot of the couch next to Travis.
Piper had texted Katie earlier that she was bringing Reyna, and if the others had any objections, they didn't voice them. Lacey scooted over to make space for them on the rug. "They're playing Halo 3," she explained. "After this round, it's the boys versus girls. Mario Kart."
"Have you played Mario Kart before?" Katie asked Reyna. She nodded, to Piper's slight surprise. She'd never pinned her down as one who played a lot of video games. "When I babysit my little cousin, I sometimes play it with him." "Cool." The other included Reyna in their conversation so naturally that an outsider would've thought that she was easily one of them in their group of friends.
"Hey," a familiar, musical voice said from behind her. Piper turned around to see that Will had somehow appeared behind her. "Hi," she said warmly. "How's your uncle doing?"
"Much better. He'll be out of the hospital soon."
"That's great!" Piper exclaimed.
Somewhere in the course of the next two hours, Will's arm slipped around her and rested across her shoulders. Piper firmly avoided the gleeful looks Lacey was throwing at her. As someone who'd never been in an actual relationship, she had no clue about what to do in these situations, no experience whatsoever. And it wasn't like her mom was going to give her dating advice, either. She noticed Reyna glancing at them briefly out of the corner of her eye once. She didn't know what that was about, but she seemed to be a lot friendlier towards Piper after that.
"Thanks for inviting me," Reyna said later. She'd insisted on sending Piper home, or at least to her street. After a glance at the darkening sky, she'd agreed. "I haven't played in a long time." Despite this, Reyna had managed to flatten everyone in Mario Kart, helping to bring the girls team of Katie, Reyna, Lacey and herself to victory. Even though Piper had had her reservations about how her friends would receive her, she could see them gradually warm up to her after a while, Reyna even exchanging a fist bump with Lacey when they beat Will and Connor in a race down a particularly tricky course.
"No problem," Piper replied. "You've got to let loose sometimes, you know?" Reyna shrugged. "I guess so." She didn't sound very convinced, though.
The car pulled up to the curb at the street her house was on. Piper hopped out. "Thanks for the lift."
happy new year, guys! this would've been uploaded yesterday but I couldn't edit it in time I'm a terrible procrastinator. I hope you enjoy this chapter! also go check out my playlist and stuff on my profile I'll update it for January soon! please leave a review if you have any feedback I do love reading your reviews they always make me smile :) have a great day xx