***Hey. I feel like every time I upload a new chapter I want to apologize for taking so long. So without much ado, here is the new chapter. Enjoy.
Chapter 29: Relief
The rest of the school day went by excruciatingly slowly. At lunch time Piper had been done with the day when she saw Alex sitting down at a table as far away from her as possible. She knew Alex probably just needed the distance right now but it still hurt nonetheless.
After the last lesson Piper waited in front of the school where she usually met with Alex to walk home together. She saw Nicky standing with Polly and her boyfriend not too far away as if they waited for something. Piper hoped Alex would finally talk to her so they could solve this. She hoped it had been enough time to think about all this and talk about it instead of ignore her. Alex eventually came out of the building and her level of nervousness rose very high. She hadn't felt so nervous around Alex for a very long time. Probably since that spring ball when she decided she had to tell Alex about her feelings.
"Hey." Alex greeted her as she approached.
"Hey." Piper gave back relieved that she was obviously ready to talk to her again.
"I'm sorry that I left like that yesterday." Alex started.
""I get it. You needed time to think about it." Piper said before Alex had completely finished. "I'm not gonna say that it didn't suck. But I understand it. I'm sorry I interrupted you."
"Well, I was going to say that. But I shouldn't have run out like that. And I'm sorry for lunch today. Seeing you so sad there almost made me cry, but I wasn't ready to talk about all this." Alex kept on apologizing.
"But you're ready now?" Piper asked careful and at the same time hopeful.
"Yes. But maybe not here right in front of the school." Alex tried to lift the mood a little.
"Sure. Where do you want to go?" Piper asked.
Piper agreed to Alex's suggestion to go for a walk and they went to the park. They walked for a while until Alex started to speak.
"The thought of being so far away from each other and maybe ending up growing apart scares me. A lot. And I know it's a maybe and another maybe that we'll make it through those years together with few problems. And that incertainty scares me. Sometimes not knowing is exciting. But not if it's about our future together. In this case it scares me. And I'm not used to feeling so insecure and somewhat dispirited. So I needed some time to be okay with that and accepting that this is what I feel." she explained.
Piper listened and took in what her girlfriend told her. She loved that Alex felt so safe with her that she showed her that vulnerable side of her that she didn't show often but Piper knew was there.
"I feel the same Alex. Really, I do. Maybe I have a different way of showing or another way of pushing it so far to the back of my mind that I don't allow myself to be scared. I try to stay optimistic and believe in us making it through that even if we are so far apart. And I totally understand that you needed time to think about everything. You just scared me a little when you ran out like that." Piper admitted.
Alex smiled a little. It actually comforted her a little that Piper felt the same. But still they needed to find a solution to their current problem.
"That's nice to know, I mean that you feel like me, not that I scared you, I didn't want that. I just don't know what to do about it. I mean so far it looks like either way we're going to study at different colleges and we'll have to deal with it. And we have to find a solution that works for both of us, because we have to decide sooner rather than later where we want to study and send a reply to those admissions." Alex said.
"I know. But I think the current situation is that it's Smith for me, that's the only one at the east coast and either Boston or Washington for you, otherwise we would be on opposite coasts of this country." Piper concluded. She didn't want to start the same discussion as the day before seeing how it had ended but they needed to find a way out of the situation and eventually needed to talk about it.
"That's right." Alex agreed but didn't offer anything else.
"And believe me, I would love to have you as close as I can and that would be Boston. But I also want you to be able to choose your number one. Which was clearly Washington. Al, you deserve the best education possible, because you're one of the smartest people I know. And I don't want to say that you'll be a bad teacher if you go to Boston but if you say Washington has the better offer then you should definitely consider it too. And I say that fully knowing that that means fewer times that we see each other and longer travel." Piper explained her thoughts. "Really, I just want the best for you. I love you, Alex." she added.
"I love you too, Pipes." Alex returned smiling at her. "And I get what you mean, but it's a hard decision. I'd love to go to the Trinity but Washington is also at least six hours away from you. And while I think the program Trinity has to offer is the better one I also don't want to be that far away from you."
"Maybe it helps if we talk about how we will make it work being apart like that. Just hypothetical, if you decide to go to Washington. It's going to be unlikely that we manage to visit each other every weekend or every other weekend. How often we can make it work is probably something we'll have to figure out when we know how much classes we have and how we'll get from Trinity to Smith and the other way. And whenever we can't visit we can call or text each other or skype." Piper listed the things she could think of. She hated the thought of seeing Alex only once a month, but she didn't want it to put a strain on their relationship either if they'd tried to visit every weekend or every other weekend and maybe could make that work but also miss out on many things. Additionally it was a rather stressful prospect.
"I guess, seen as we don't have any other choice it's gonna be like that, huh?" Alex replied. She didn't have a better suggestion. "If I went to Boston we could make it every weekend. Or at least every other weekend. I'll think about it. I don't think I can make that decision today."
"You don't have to. If I'm right we have two more weeks until we need that final decision." Piper agreed.
"That's good." Alex replied. "I'm glad we talked about it again and you're not mad at me for leaving like that."
"Me too." Piper said.
"It's really weird though, you know… That I didn't get any reply from Smith. Every other college sent something if it was an admission or rejection." Alex added.
"That's true. I mean every college send a reply by now…" Piper agreed.
"Maybe I should call? I mean something could have gone wrong. I don't mean to put too much hope in that but it would solve our biggest problem right now." Alex suggested.
"It'd be good to have the certainty of a admission or rejection, that for sure." Piper said.
"You know what? I'll do that." Alex replied energetically and took out her phone to search for the number.
"You mean right now?" Piper was surprised by the sudden action.
"No better time than right now, isn't it?" Alex asked, her eye concentrated on her phone screen on the search for the right person to call. Couple minutes later she had found the right number and dialled.
"Hello. My name is Alex Vause. I applied at your college…" Alex replied as someone answered her call. Piper waited patiently as Alex explained that she had applied but had gotten no reply when she had one from every other college she had applied at. Also she mentioned Piper's letter and her confusion why she didn't have any reply at all. Then she went silent. 'They're looking in their system.' she mouthed to Piper.
"Really? I didn't get that letter, that's why I thought I'd call." Piper heard Alex reply. "Okay, thank you. Could you maybe tell me what I can expect?" Alex's face turned hopeful. Then it seemed to take a while.
"They send a letter that got lost in the mail, I guess. They're sending another one, the woman said, but she didn't see what it was in the system so she is putting me through to someone else." she explained to Piper who slowly got excited and kept her fingers crossed that the reply was positive. "Yes, hello, Alex Vause here…." Alex turned back to the call and went on to explain again why she called. When she got an answer from the person on the other end of the line she tried to keep her face as straight as she could. She didn't want to give anything away just yet. With a last "Thank you." she ended the call.
"Aaalleeex! Come on. Say something." Piper couldn't handle the suspense. She wanted to know what they had said.
"Someone is impatient…" Alex tried to say as nonchalant as possible.
"That's mean you know…. Just tell me!" Piper almost begged.
"Okay. I got in!" Alex almost screamed. She smiled widely.
"Yess!" Piper smiled too and pulled Alex in for a hug. "That's amazing!"
"I guess it was a good idea to call." Alex added and chuckled.
"Agreed." Piper smiled widely and couldn't help but kiss Alex. She was so excited. The admission solved their problem of studying in different cities.
"I guess the discussion of where we'll go is closed then. And don't say Washington was on my first place. Smith was in the very close second place and that was only because of that one course at Trinity that I thought sounded interesting." Alex concluded. She felt so relieved.
"I wasn't going to say that. Didn't even think about it." Piper still grinned widely. "This calls for a celebration."
"Yes. It absolutely does. Wanna come over to my house and celebrate?!" Alex asked raising her eyebrow into her signature smirk.
"Sure. Do you mind if I shortly went home to get changed into something more party-like and drop off my school stuff though?" Piper asked.
"If you need to?!" Alex reluctantly agreed.
"Yeah. I'll be there as soon as I can, okay?!" Piper said and was about to leave.
"Okay. Don't take too long though!" Alex pulled Piper back before she could make her way home and puled her in for a kiss. "Don't leave without that!"
"We'll see each other again in like 30 minutes or so." Piper giggled but actually enjoyed Alex's antics.
"I know, but still…" Alex smirked.
With that both walked to their house. When Alex got home she met her mom in the livingroom.
"Hey, how are you?" Diane asked casually.
"Good. And you?" Alex returned.
"Good. How did your day go so far?" Diane kept asking.
"Mixed, I guess. Why so curious?" Alex wondered.
"Well, you've been so … I don't know if sad is the right word… let's say, not in a good mood ever since yesterday afternoon." Diane explained. "And I wanted to know if I can help."
"That's nice. And yeah, I was. Upset and sad too. Piper and I had quite the fight yesterday. And I needed some time to process that." Alex started.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Diane said empathetically.
"So, yeah, that was why I was upset. Thanks for offering help, but I don't think anyone could have really done something. The problem is solved though however. We talked about it and then I got some really good news and now everything is better than it was before." Alex told her and gave her a big smile.
"That's great to hear. You want to tell me what it was about? And what the really good news is?" Diane wanted to know.
"Well, we got most of our reactions to the college applications so far. I mean I told you about the admissions and rejections. So, well, at some point Piper and I had to talk about where we'd want to go and…" she told her mom the whole problem why they had had that long discussion and how it had ended. "So today after school we went to the park to talk about it again. But the initial situation was still the same. And I still wondered why I haven't gotten any letter or anything from Smith. So I just called there." In that moment the doorbell rang. "Oh, that's Piper."
"Wait… What's the good news?" she was so curious after everything Alex had told her. "Oh my… you got into Smith, didn't you?"
"Exactly. That basically solved our whole problem. Now we can go to the same college and don't have to figure out how we can see each other. I'll quickly open the door. Piper just shortly went home to drop off her school stuff and wanted to come over to celebrate." Alex confirmed Diane's guess.
"That's amazing." Diane was happy for both Alex and Piper. She had noticed that the discussion and decision where to go to college had been hard for the girls. Alex had been annoyed easily whenever the topic came up.
"Hello Diane." Piper greeted her smiling when she walked in.
"Hey Piper." Diane returned her smile.
"I guess you already heard the good news?" she asked excited.
"Yeah, I'm so happy for you two. I know this has upset you." Diane replied.
"Thank you. I'm so happy we get to go to the same college." Piper smiled so widely. She was over the moon that this dream came true. She had thought it'd be very unlikely that they both got an admission letter from the same college.
"How about we order some pizza and celebrate this with a little party?!" Diane suggested. "You could ask some friends to come over? Maybe have a sleep over with your friends?"
"I'm in." the girls replied in unison and giggled.
"Okay. I'll call Polly, will you ask Nicky?" Piper turned to Alex.
"Sure." she replied and both got their phones out to call their friends. They all together got the living room ready for their impromptu party. About twenty minutes later first Poly arrived and then couple minutes later Nicky too.
"So, will you let us know what the reason behind this celebration is?" Polly started.
"Well, my guess was… They had a fight… I mean have you watched those two recently? And now celebrate that they're good, again? I just haven't gotten behind the question why they'd want us here then. I'd celebrate that a little differently… But whatever, that's me. Am I somewhat close?" Nicky interrupted. Alex and Piper laughed.
"Well, the whole process of applying at colleges and not knowing where we'll go and the long discussion of how to handle studying at different colleges had us in a tense and also stressful situation. And yes that might have put a strain on our relationship. But we've got a different reason to celebrate." Piper started to explain. "Well. We actually got to study at the same college. We're both going to Smith!" she raised her arms in enthusiasm.
"Well good for you. I'm happy for you." Polly grinned and went to hug her friends.
"Is that why that whole avoiding each other at school today happened? You had a fight about not going to the same college?" Nicky asked.
"You go through the application process and the waiting for results and then we'll talk about that again." Alex gave back.
Diane came in and brought the pizza that had been delivered couple minutes ago.
"Mhm. Smelling that makes my mouth water." Piper exclaimed. "This smells so delicious."
"I know something else that'll make your mouth water." Alex whispered seductively in her ear, her voice dropping even lower than usual. Piper blushed and while pointing with her head towards Diane and their friends she mouthed "Shut up." to Alex. By the smirk on Nicky's face she had followed the short exchange between the two. But lucky for the two of them she decided not to make a comment on that, or spare it for later. "Aww, but look at that cute little blush." Alex teased her.
The girls started chatting about their plans and ideas and hopes what would or would not happen when they'd finish school. All sat on the couch talking and Diane let the four of them alone to talk while she checked on Felix.
"Uhh. I've got an idea." Piper suddenly sat up from where she had been leaning into Alex on the couch.
"Are you gonna tell us?" Polly asked when Piper paused to see the reaction and waited for everybody's attention.
"Well this is the last summer where we are all together, right? Polly, you'll be in Los Angeles, Nicky will be here and we'll both be at Smith. After this summer we'll all be all over the country. Who knows when and how we'll see each other again. How about we all take a trip together. Go somewhere, all of us and use those last days that we are still here before everything changes." Piper enthusiastically proposed.
"I really like that idea." Polly was excited.
Nicky and Alex agreed too and soon the were discussing where they could go and what they could do. Ideas were flying all over the place. Unfortunately neither Nicky nor Polly could stay for a sleep-over so they went home after promising to ask their parents for permission to go on that trip together.
"As much as I'd have liked a sleep-over with those two I am somehow glad that we can celebrate in our own way. Just the two of us." Alex admitted.
Piper smirked. "I see. But to be honest I hoped they wouldn't be able to stay overnight."
Obviously both of them had the same thing in mind and shortly said good night to DIane and Louis to go up to Alex's room. When Piper had made a stop at home earlier before coming over the main reason hadn't been that she wanted to drop off her school stuff. The part about wanting to change wasn't all lied but the clothes she had worn at school weren't a problem. It was rather for something she had prepared and wanted to surprise Alex with. She recently had bought some really nice lingerie she thought Alex might like. As thing now got more heated they took off their shirts and pants Piper could sense Alex holding still and caught her staring at her.
"Do you like what you see?" she teased her.
"Absolutely." Alex gave back hoarsely.
"It's actually the reason I had o go back home, you know." Piper told her moving closer. "My school clothes would have been good enough for our little celebration but I wanted to surprise you."
"Oh you definitely did." Alex smiled. "And as much as I like this, I like even more what's underneath."
"Well I figured you'd have fun taking them off." Piper said seductively as she closed the last gap between them and kissed Alex.