To Look Again
Hard To Hold
Piper walked home slowly, she didn't want to get there on time. She just wanted to be elsewhere, it seemed that living in that house everyday just made things worse for her but she just couldn't image life away from the manor. She arrived at the front door a lot earlier than she thought she would, she took a deep breath in and out and then entered. As soon as she was in the manor she could feel the intense atmosphere that came from it, the depression floated around in the air. It was affecting everyone, and even though everyone knew what was going on it just seemed like no one would talk about it, everyone was keeping to themselves and trying to ignore everything that was happening in the house. Piper wished that she could just ignore whatever was going on but if she did she would just feel totally helpless, she knew that she couldn't do that. She went straight upstairs into her bedroom and threw herself on the bed; she couldn't be bothered making small talk with Grams or Phoebe, and especially not Prue. Although it always did seem that Prue was doing a lot better than she was personally, but naturally she was never going to mention anything like this to anyone. It would just cause problems and she didn't want to burden anyone. She lay on her bed and silently listened to any noises around the manor. Nothing was there, there was no noise, no children playing in the street, everything was silent. Piper sat up on her bed, she knew that things weren't right. It was way to quiet; she walked out of her room and went down stairs – naturally fearing the worst. She arrived in the kitchen and looked around to see a note from Grams sitting on the counter. She walked over and picked it up,
"Piper, Prue had an accident. She's in the hospital; I'm going to collect Phoebe. We'll be back later, dinner is in the microwave." She read aloud, she dropped the note to the floor. Oh God, She thought, It's happening again…she dropped to the floor and started breathing heavily. Before long she was sobbing uncontrollably.
A few hours later Piper had fallen asleep on the kitchen floor, after about half an hour of crying her body had given into exhaustion and her eyes refused to stay open. She was in deep slumber when she started to dream,
Piper stood in her bedroom, staring out the closed window. Slowly she heard Grams' footsteps approaching it had been fifteen minutes since dinner had been served and it wasn't like Piper to want to help. Soon enough Grams was standing at the door,
"Piper?" she questioned as slowly she walked into the room. Piper turned to face her grandmother, tears streaming down her face, "Piper, what's the matter?" asked grams placing a loving arm around Piper's shoulders.
"Its bad Grams, and I don't know what to do with it. But I can't keep it to myself anymore… its hurting her too much," sighed Piper allowing her body to fall to pieces in her Grams arms.
"What? Who's hurting? I don't understand Piper," said Grams, trying to understand what Piper was talking about,
"Its Prue… she's hurting and I don't know how to help. And I wanted to tell you all this earlier but I couldn't face up to the truth about any of it. I think there's something… well actually I know there's something seriously wrong with her," sobbed Piper,
"What? What do you mean, Prue's fine, just her bubbly happy self," said Grams,
"No. She has cuts, and scars, and scratches… all up her arms. And I found these in her room," said Piper reaching under her duvet cover no revealing a couple of razor blades broken out of shaving razors. "She's been hiding them and there's toilet paper and towels drenched in blood… Prue's blood. I don't want to upset you but I can't deal with this anymore… I just can't," wept Piper,
"Its alright… its going to be fine. I'll deal with this," said Grams hugging Piper close to her.
Piper awoke sharply from her dream, or at least she wished it were just a dream. She quickly picked herself up off the ground and headed for the bathroom, she started running the hot water and soon the bathroom was filled with piping hot steam coming from her bath. She locked the door, stripped off and got into the bathtub. The hot water on her skin was a relief, she was freezing after waking up and she always seemed to get very cold after crying. She picked up a white sponge and began to wash her arms and stomach, and then she reached for her razor and began to shave her legs. She brought the razor swiftly up her leg and just let her mind wander, suddenly she winced in pain. She looked down at her leg; she had nicked herself with the razor.
"Damnit!" she swore, as she reached for the cloth once more and placed it on her leg. She watched mesmerised as the blood slowly started soaking in the cloth, her leg was bleeding worse than she'd realised. Suddenly the water around her started turning blood red, she lifted the cloth of her cut and looked at her leg. There was no cut there, she ran some of the blood red water on it but there was still nothing,
"What the hell?" she questioned, she looked around to find a source of the blood and then glanced at her arms. They were bleeding heavily; she had four of five cuts on each wrist and up her arms, "What?" said Piper beginning to panic. Suddenly there was a knock at the door; Piper's head darted round to face the door.
"Piper, its Grams. Are you in there?" Piper looked towards the door, her eyes beginning to tear, "Piper?" questioned Grams from outside, "Are you ok?"
"Yes," choked Piper trying to cry, she waited until she heard the footsteps leaving and turned back to her cuts. They had vanished, and the water was clear. Piper breathed heavily, and closely examined her arms, running her fingers over where the cuts had been.
"I imagined it?" said Piper, she lifted up the razor and examined the blades, and she didn't find any traces of blood. Slowly her breathing began getting back to normal, she quickly washed her hair and then climbed out. She wrapped a white towel round and her lifted up the white cloth once more and ran it under the cold tap in the sink. She looked in the mirror whilst doing this and then looked down, the cloth was stained with blood…
A/N: Ok, I know its been like ages since I've updated, and even though this isn't my most popular fic I hope that more people will begin to show an interest in it as it develops so please review and tell me what you think