A/N: So, I'm returning from a lengthy hiatus. If you're around on Tumblr, you've heard this already, but just as a brief explanation: I've been trying to focus hardcore on original writing projects, as well as establish a more strict Work Hours schedule. And I've been spending an excessive amount of my Sundays at improv shows, and Sundays were always my biggest fic writing day. This fic in particular has really lengthy chapters, and is fairly extensively planned out, so I spend a lot of time and concentration on it, and I haven't necessarily had that to give. I've been able to do a little Ghostbusters fic writing because those sections have been fairly short, and doesn't really take a lot of my focus, just kind of feels like "This is just for fun!" kinda writing.
The good news: I didn't want to update Dog Days until I knew I could do fairly regular updates again, and really make it a priority. We're really getting into a more plot heavy part now, so I didn't want to leave these kind of chapters dangling for a month at a time. But between wrapping up some original writing projects and heading into the holidays, I feel pretty good about being able to get us to the end without huge delays. And honestly, every day since the election has been some degree of a Bad Day, and it made me want to retreat into my comfort place of Alex/Piper fic, and maybe offer some distraction to readers who are feeling similarly shitty.
Sorry for the delay, and thanks for everyone's patience and understanding. It's much, much appreciated.
Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me.
Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl / Broken Social Scene
Text Message, Monday, 3:45 pm
ALEX
[Hey so my mom said I can take the car all day tomorrow]
[Wanna meet in the middle somewhere?]
[Have lunch or see a movie or just find something random to do]
PIPER
[Yes and yes and yes]
[I think there's a website that tells you the exact midpoint between two addresses]
ALEX
[Excellent, but no cheating]
[Let's say we have to go to whatever dinky ass town it tells us]
PIPER
[Deal]
For the first time since starting Litchfield, Piper hadn't been entirely dreading a break. Spending the week of Thanksgiving stuck at home still wouldn't be as good as being with Alex, with all her friends, but there was a guilty flicker of relief in her gut to leave the campus for a few days.
Since the near reveal with Polly, Piper's head has been all gray static anxiety, paranoia shifting around in her stomach. She feels, suddenly, overly conscious of her behavior around Alex outside the safe confines of their room, or Janae and Nicky's, or the woods in the low light of dusk.
She's gotten too comfortable, let their boundaries get all smudged and flexible.
The last few days have been about redrawing them, but it doesn't come naturally; it means Piper has to be tense and alert at all times, holding herself in tight control against instincts like lilting too far into Alex's side when they walk, leaning close and flirtatious in the cafeteria.
Their presentation in drama, the Friday they left for break, had been excruciating. Piper had already felt overly scrutinized, so actually standing in front of a classroom full of wide, staring eyes - talking about turning Romeo and Juliet into a play about two girls - had been overwhelming. It felt like one of those bad dreams where you show up to school naked, or are pushed out onstage for a play you haven't rehearsed for.
Alex seemed to have sensed her discomfort, and had smoothly taken all the sections about the actual love story, switching from their original plan and letting Piper talk exclusively about sets and costumes and tone.
It made Piper feel gross, like suddenly she's a person who can't even talk about a story if it's too gay. Her stomach hurt the whole rest of class, but Alex hadn't been mad. She'd just raised an eyebrow as they filed out of the drama classroom and asked in an undertone, "Cool?"
Piper had just nodded, swallowing the apologies she'd had all ready between her teeth. Then they'd split up for separate classes, and by lunch, Alex's easy laughing eyes made the whole awful thing feel past tense.
But Piper had still felt a guilty gust of relief blow through her when she crawled into the backseat of her father's car that afternoon, the first time being driven away from school hadn't felt vaguely like she's being taken hostage by her family.
Three days into break, the relief is gone, leaving only the guilt behind, so Piper's thrilled by Alex's suggestion that they meet up midweek. She wants to make up for the weirdness of the last few days at school.
They figure out their midpoint town, an hour and a half away for both of them, and meet at an IHOP off an exit around eleven on Wednesday morning. Piper hugs Alex in the parking lot and feels her muscles release the last bit of tension.
Alex gets waffles and Piper orders pancakes, and when it comes they switch half their order. Under the table, Alex hooks her foot around Piper's heel, her eyes flashing with a smile. "So. How's winter settling into the Chapman household?"
Piper rolls her eyes. "I hate this break," she says, meaning it again. "Long enough to feel like I'm going crazy with boredom. Too short for Mom and Dad to let me actually come visit you."
"At least they gave you a day pass." Her eyes move out the window into the mostly empty parking lot. "But I don't think we've stumbled into a major cultural center."
"We'll find something to do," Piper tells her, barely caring if they do.
After brunch, they get in their cars and stay on speakerphone as they drive through the town. They pass a few unexciting shopping centers and chain restaurants.
"Hey, that mall has a movie theater," Alex's voice comes through the phone after a few minutes of driving. "We'll remember for later. If all fails we can just go and watch all the movies."
"There's hardly anything good playing."
"So we'll sit in the back row and make out."
"Sounds fun, why is it a back up plan?"
"I'm still determined to find something better...but hey, wanna leave one of the cars? It's probably fine at the mall."
So they leave Alex's mom's crumbling old Toyota in the parking lot and continue on with just Piper's car. Alex hooks her phone up to the radio and picks songs, and they're both talking so much that Piper keeps forgetting to pay attention to what they're driving past.
Something Piper loves about her and Alex, the two of them as a unit, is how, improbably, they never run out of things to say to each other. They don't even need conversational segues. It's just thinking out loud, when they're together.
Alex is in the middle of telling Piper about a movie she'd watched with her mom on Sunday night when she stops mid-sentence, a slow grin taking over her face. "Pull in there."
Piper looks to the left, and the first thing she sees is a huge plaster giraffe.
It's a minigolf course, the theme apparently a wide range of large animals with the paint chipping off. And in November, it's mostly empty, though still optimistically open for business.
They put coats and beanies on to play, gloves in their pockets so they can properly grip the putters. Alex gives Piper a wry look as they grab a mini pencil and score card. "Should I have not picked something competitive? I don't need Assassins: The Sequel."
"I'm only competitive about things I'm good at."
Alex laughs, full and loud, then smirks. "That explains your complete indifference when we go bowling."
Turns out they suck equally at putt putt, and after about four holes they give up on playing seriously. Sometimes they start at the same time, not worrying about how many putts so much as who gets their ball in the hole first, shouldering each other aside on the narrow green. Sometimes they put one ball aside and battle it out for one, more hockey than golf. A few holes they crouch on their knees and roll with their hands.
They skip a couple of the more boring holes altogether, opting instead to take photos with the towering menagerie and send way too many Snapchats to their friends - the more Nicky complains, the more she gets.
After over an hour of goofing around the course, they still haven't seen anyone else playing. They don't finish the eighteenth course - Alex's idea, dropping both balls (one red, one purple) into Piper's purse instead of the seemingly infinite hole that returns them.
"We gave them their only business today," Alex rationalizes, sitting down in the middle of the green and grinning up at Piper. "We can take a thank you."
Piper smiles and settles beside her. They stretch out on their backs, the view of an elephant looming between them and the sky.
"Where to now?" Alex asks, turning her head so her beanie slides up off her hair.
"No idea." Piper checks her cell phone. "We didn't kill that much time."
"Too soon for the movie theater?"
"I'm very okay with that."
The theater is the best kind, taking tickets at the door to the building rather than at the individual screening rooms, so Alex buys two tickets and they use them to half-watch three different movies, purchasing popcorn and gummy bears and a giant soda as a junk food dinner in between the second and third film.
It's dark out when they emerge into the mall parking lot, momentarily disorienting in the way the daylight disappeared while they weren't looking. Piper leans against the driver's door of her car when Alex kisses her goodnight, sweet and slow like they haven't been making out for the past six hours.
"I'll see you Sunday."
"Can't wait," Piper whispers, meaning it as much as she always does.
Things feel normal again, being back at school after the break. Piper's relearned to be careful in public, instinctively holding back on anything that might fuel speculation, but the nauseating paranoia seems to have receded; she doesn't feel so watched anymore.
But then winter formal rolls around again, a night full of traps that are so easy to fall into.
Alex is busy the week leading up to it, the usual pre-dance rush of booze orders that necessitates her pestering Nicky into several different liquor store runs off campus. Tennis season is over, and it's already too cold out to want to play recreationally, so she and Polly have to make specific plans to hang out. They end up walking - briskly, hugging their coats tight against the wind announcing winter - to the bakery one day while Alex and Nicky are off using Alex's fake ID.
Polly's practically giddy with excitement for the dance, and it's all she wants to talk about - she's going with Danny, they've been texting a lot more lately, did he say anything about it to Piper over Thanksgiving? - and the whole time it feels like Piper's stomach is balling up on itself.
She thought she was done picking over that night, the one when Polly saw them kissing, but now its echoing in a way that's making her obsess.
It's not like people haven't wondered.
You guys are so close, and haven't even gone out with anyone else in like a year.
You never hang out with Overbrook guys. That's the kind of thing high school rumor mills notice.
At last year's formal, she'd made out with Larry on the dance floor in front of everyone. At the spring dance, she'd danced drunkenly with Alex the whole time, eye fucking and barely hiding their wandering hands in the crowd.
Nothing had happened, but it still feels like a mistake. One she can't make again.
They pregame in their dorm room, as always, all music and laughter and styrofoam cups. Piper finishes her first drink - vodka with a few splashes of Sprite - too fast, and then nurses her second until its time to leave.
Alex notices, of course. "Going sober on me, Pipes?"
She smiles, tense. "No, I just. Kept getting distracted."
There's something in Alex's eyes like she knows the rest of it, the part Piper doesn't want to say: I don't trust myself to be drunk around you in front of everyone.
Mercifully, she doesn't call Piper on it, gifting her with a change of subject, "Cal coming tonight?"
"Last I heard. Won't be shocked if he opts out at the last second."
"Should I have provided him with some illegal motivation? Of both your brothers, he's the one I could probably be persuaded to discount."
"He and his friends seem to have a supplier already. Pretty sure he brought weed home over Thanksgiving."
The five of them hit the dance floor together, the way they always do; it seems smaller than usual, and Piper keeps inadvertently surveying the groups in her eye line: girls from the tennis team, or from drama class, and then, not as far away as she'd like, her older brother, Polly plastered against his side, Jessica and the others milling nearby with Danny's friends, Larry included.
Strange, sharp resentment starts to stab between her ribs, leaving Piper irrationally annoyed at everyone here, like they're the ones who have stolen her ability to properly lose herself in the moment. It's never been this hard before. It sours her mood.
Alex stops dancing at one point, wraps a hand around Piper's arm and pulls her close enough to say into her ear, "Are you okay?"
Piper's throat tightens as an unwelcome instinct to pull away from Alex zips through her. She can tell by her girlfriend's voice that it's not really a question, but just the easiest way to express concern.
Still, Piper just nods, and tries to make her smile look okay. She leans close to Alex, just so she can hear her. "I might go look for Cal. See if he's having an okay time."
"Oh. Okay. Want me to come?"
"It's okay, I'll be right back. Just gonna...circle the room."
Piper moves to the outskirts of the dance floor. It had just been an excuse to walk away for a minute, but she really should check on Cal, at least say hello. Predictably, she finds him with a couple of other boys leaning against a wall not far from the table set up with punch and refreshments.
She's hit with a warm rush of fondness for her little brother, looking young and awkward in a suit their mother made him buy over the summer. She doesn't approach his friends, just waits until he catches her eye and beckons him over.
"Hey."
"Yo."
"Having fun?"
He wrinkles his nose. "It's lame. Shitty music."
Piper rolls her eyes; she'd take the Top 40 hits tonights DJ seems to favor from the screaming-as-singing music that had been blaring out of Cal's room their last break home. "You should stop hugging the wall, buddy." She nudges his shoulder teasingly. "Didn't you say you missed having girls around?"
His face tinges red. "Yeah, but, come on. Like I'm going to first meet anyone here. You're supposed to go to dances with girls you already know. Not like...the first time you talk to someone is asking 'em to dance."
Piper grins a little. "Like a Jane Austen novel."
"Huh?"
"Never mind."
"You know it's weird meeting like this. That's the only you woulda ended up dating one of Danny's friends. Cause they were the only ones you had an 'in' with."
The last traces of her smile vanish. "I never dated anyone."
"He said you went out with his roommate."
"Barely."
"And no one since. See? Hard to meet people."
Cal obviously doesn't mean anything about her not dating anyone: he's got his own point to make, but Piper stiffens anyway.
She wonders idly if Larry ever heard the rumors about her and Alex, if it had finally made her abrupt rejection on Valentine's Day make sense.
"You should talk to someone," she tells Cal, trying to shake off her own anxiety. "Just introduce yourself, awkward or not."
"Uh, gee, thanks, Mom." He scowls at her, but it fades abruptly into a leer. "Wanna hook me up with one of your friends?"
"My friends are juniors." And mostly gay. "But maybe you'd have a chance with Polly when Danny goes off to college and inevitably dumps her again."
"Are they back together?"
"Seems like it tonight, at least."
"They're dumb," Cal mutters without explanation.
He lumbers back to his friends soon, and Piper wanders to the refreshment table for some punch. There are a couple teachers standing close by, pretty much guaranteeing it's not spiked. She's glad.
"Hey."
Piper glances over just as Alex rests a hand on the arm that isn't ladling Kool-Aid into a cup. "Hey. Sorry, I just left Cal."
"All good. Just got bored without you." She glances around, as though checking if there's anyone in earshot. "Hey, do you maybe just want to head back to the dorm?" Alex arches a single eyebrow. "Doesn't seem like you're feeling this."
There's an unspoken sentence stacked beneath that one, an entreaty to go back to their room and be normal again, and Piper wants to agree. She wants to hide behind the safe doors and walls and get as close to Alex as she wants.
But a new instinct whispers through her head: what will people think?
How would it look for them to leave a dance so early? Why would they prefer to be in their dorm room alone? Those questions carousel through her thoughts, around and around, and surely the answer is obvious. Piper doesn't want to create more evidence in the case against her.
So she says, "No, it's fine. We should stay." Then, as if Alex is someone else, someone who can't read her like an open book, Piper pastes on a smile. "Sorry, I don't mean to be weird. Worried about Cal."
She can tell Alex is barely suppressing a sigh, but she goes along with it. "Okay then. He's not having fun either?"
"He's wallflowering it with a couple of other guys." Grateful for the change of subject, forced or not, Piper nods in the direction of her brother and his antisocial buddies. "Just kept going on and on about how hard it is to meet girls this way."
Alex grins, and it loosens the knot in Piper's stomach. "I sympathize. I'd be going a little crazy, too, if my school hadn't literally dropped a pretty girl right in my bedroom. Poor kid." She pauses. The opening bars of a slow song is playing, the first of the night. Suddenly, Alex smirks. "I got an idea. Can't hurt to try to bolster the kid's social standing."
She taps her knuckles lightly against Piper's elbow, and then strides over to Cal and his cluster of awkward freshmen. Piper watches as her girlfriend holds out a formal hand to her brother, his friends opening gawking. Cal's red faced and biting back a smile as he sheepishly follows Alex onto the dance floor. She winks at Piper over his shoulder.
A smile creeps slowly across Piper's lips as she watches the two of them, Alex with her arms draped lightly on Cal's shoulders, saying something Piper can tell is meant to make him laugh.
It's a sweet sight, but jealousy quickly chases Piper's contentment like a sharp, bitter shot of alcohol. She should be the one dancing with Alex.
But it's her own fault that she isn't.
She watches them for the rest of the sickly sweet chorus before looking away, angry and embarrassed in a way that makes her wish she was drunk after all.
Then Larry Bloom sidles up to her.
"Hey, Piper."
"Oh. Hi." She hasn't talked to Larry at all in the last year, beyond a few vague greetings at Overbrook basketball games. "Um. How's everything going?"
"Good, yeah. Ready for this semester to be over so I can coast. Early college acceptance is a beautiful thing."
"So you know where you're going?"
He grins. "Yup, decided on UPenn."
"Wow. Congratulations, that's awesome." She frowns. "You're not rooming with Danny again, are you?"
"If he goes there, we might. He's still considering Cornell."
"Jesus, why do that to yourself again?"
That makes him laugh. "C'mon. We've lived together four years. I'd miss the guy if we end up at different places...though that might just be senior nostalgia. It's already hitting me, like...ah, last ever Overbrook football game - even though I never gave a shit about them anyway." Piper laughs, letting her gaze dart to Alex, checking if she's watching. She isn't.
For something to say, she jokes back, "Does that mean you're filled with sentiment about your last ever winter formal?"
"A little, yeah." He tilts his head and smiles. "Wanna close out this song with me? For old time's sake?"
Reflexively, Piper glances back at Alex.
There's no reason for her to say no.
It's just a dance.
What will people think?
"Sure."
Piper follows him out to the dance floor, telling herself she agrees because it's harmless, but the truth simmers in her stomach: she'd rather be seen dancing with a boy than refusing one, even if it is her sort of ex. Even if her girlfriend is one of the people watching.
"...and here's another thing you should do. Once you start talking to a girl, figure out which sport she plays, and ask about her next game. No big deal, keep it casual. Just show up with some friends. Litch girls traipse their asses over to your school like every single dude sport is an important social event. Guys never return the favor. It'll score you points."
"Got it, okay." Cal nods seriously. His obvious nervousness about being on dance floor with a human female has long faded, and now he's regarding Alex with intense concentration, like he wants to memorize every bit of advice she gives him, the slow dance position of their conversation completely irrelevant. "Anything else?"
"I might be tapped out. Those are all my Litchfield secrets." She smiles. "Just work that natural Chapman charm. You gotta have it, right?"
He snorts, an odd mix of self-deprecating and derisive. "I'm nothing like Danny. And Piper...she's been single the whole time here, too, right? Except that thing with Danny's roommate forever ago."
Alex makes a non-committal noise, cautious now, and ready to let the subject die, but then Cal raises his eyebrows and nods at something off to the side. "Maybe I spoke too soon on the forever ago."
She turns, just in time to see Piper and Larry getting into slow dance position.
The sight of it stings in her chest, and the first few seconds are all sick, shaky panic that throws her back in time to a year ago.
But then her good sense kicks in and Alex just feels pissed.
But she can't go storming off without arousing the suspicions of Piper's brother, so she grits her teeth and finishes the dance in silence that quickly turns uncomfortable.
"Hey, uh, thanks," Cal says when the fading music finally releases them. "You're cool."
She manages to grin at him, though she can feel Piper pointedly avoiding her eyes from across the dance floor. "No problem, dude. Remember what I said."
He mocks salutes before retreating back to his friends.
Alex walks purposefully over to Piper, her face a mask of carefully controlled calm. She can see the regret seeping into Piper's features even before she gets there, but she doesn't even break stride, just says softly, "I'm gonna take off."
"I'll come, too."
"Nope, you said you wanted to stay. So stay."
Piper trails pitifully after her anyway. They don't see any of their friends on the way, and Alex leaves the building without looking back, pretending Piper isn't right there at her heels.
They're almost back to the dorm before Piper finally speaks. "It was just a dance."
"I know," Alex replies, clipped and dismissive.
They're quiet until Alex forcefully closes the door at the dorm's front entrance. Then Piper tries again, "It wasn't a big deal, and there's no reason for you to be mad. He asked, I was just being nice - "
"Okay."
"So you're just going to get pissed off and passive aggressive? Say what you want to say."
Alex clenches her teeth. "I didn't think I should, seeing as we're not safe in the room, right? Aren't we being super fucking careful now?"
That shuts Piper up, and Alex has to swallow against the first tastes of guilt.
When Alex closes the door to their room behind them, pained, nervous silence engulfs the two of them for a long moment. Alex walks to her side of the room, changing out of her dress. She hasn't looked at Piper since the dance floor.
"Can we just get it over with? Please?"
"Get what over with?"
"The fighting."
"Now you're gonna tell me when I have to fight with you?"
"Only because you're already mad. It's not fair to ignore me and not say why - "
"It seems like you should know why."
"I...I know what you're mad about. But you shouldn't be. It didn't mean anything - "
Alex finally rounds on her. "I fucking know it didn't mean anything, Piper! That's not the goddamn point."
"Then tell me. That's what I'm saying. What is the point?"
"The point is that I've never asked you to do anything you don't want to do, that's going to make you uncomfortable. Including dance with me at a dumbass school formal. That's fine. But I just thought maybe you'd have the bare minimum of decency to not dance with your ex as an alternative."
Piper gapes at her for a second, face flushed. Eventually, she stammers out, "He's not my ex, we were never - "
"Oh my God, are you fucking kidding me? That's what you feel like responding to?"
"He came up to me and asked...I didn't want to say no, I didn't want anyone to think..." She trails off, eyes lowering to the floor.
"Explain this to me, Pipes...you're saying the mindset of heterosexuals is such that...if you refuse to dance with a singular boy, whom you've already broken up with...they're gonna know you like girls? That's what we're going with?"
"I don't know..." Piper's chin trembles, her eyes over bright. "I don't know what to say about it. It was a dance. I knew you could see us, I wasn't trying to...it wasn't anything."
Alex leans back against her bed, exhaling a sigh and pushing a hand through her hair. "We gotta figure this out, Pipes," she says eventually, her voice quieter and less combative than before. "I know Polly seeing us freaked you out. But that was a month ago and nothing has changed. It's all okay! I can't promise you no one is ever going to wonder, but you're never gonna be sure about that no matter what you do."
"I know." A few tears are rolling down Piper's cheeks, sober, silent crying that smudges her thicker than usual makeup. "I'm sorry."
It's hard, not to go to her when she's crying, looking so lost and scared, but Alex makes herself stay where she is, throat narrowing with her own fears as she forces out, "Pipes. Are you still sure about this?"
"About what?"
"This. Us."
Piper looks horrified. "Yes. Alex. Jesus. I love you."
"I know you do. But I'm still asking. Maybe you're thinking this isn't what you want, or it's not worth it, or whatever...I don't know, if that's where this is heading, I just want you to tell me now, so we can jus - "
Then Piper's lips are on hers, fiercely kissing the question away.
"Okay, okay," Alex murmurs against her lips, reaching up to take Piper's face in her hands, thumbing away tears. Her voice scrapes out a rough whisper. "I'm sorry. Shouldn't have said that."
"I love you," Piper repeats, thick and desperate.
"I know. Me, too."
She slips her arms around Piper's waist and hugs her hard.
"Hey," Alex murmurs after awhile. "You can tell me, you know, if there's anything I can do to make you less nervous. That Shakespeare project was too much, I know, we won't do anything like that again - "
"But you were right, nothing happened after that project. I'm just being stupid."
"You're not. Well." Alex gently tucks a blonde strand of hair behind Piper's ear. "Dancing with Larry was a little stupid."
She bites her lip, still contrite. "I'm really sorry."
"No, it's fine. I just. You know, it sucked last year, seeing you with him. Wishing it was me. I guess I just got...re-jealous." She makes a face at her own phrasing, and it puts some of the smile back in Piper's eyes.
"So...you did want to dance with me at a 'dumbass school formal'." She turns abruptly and goes to her side of the room, grabbing her phone off the desk and holding it up to Alex. "Would you maybe take a dumbass dorm room afterparty?"
Moving close to Alex again, Piper scrolls through her phone until a song starts to play, and she looks up at Alex, expectant. She is an aching kind of beautiful: her eyes red and rimmed with black, her smile scattering hope across her face. It makes Alex's chest hurt.
"Mmm-hmm," she hums out in lieu of talking, swallowing hard as she wraps her arm around Piper's neck. "But you gotta lead."
Piper rolls her eyes and laughs in relief, setting the phone on the nearest surface before linking her fingers at the small of Alex's back, chin tucked over her shoulder. The song is some soft, sweet plucking of an acoustic guitar, more Piper's type of music than Alex's, but it's somehow perfect for this: a barely swaying dance in full light, Piper still in her dress and Alex wearing an oversized T-shirt and no pants.
"Is it Polly?" Alex says out of nowhere, later, when they're in Piper's bed with the lights out, having skipped a post-dance hang out with their friends for the first time ever. Piper stiffens slightly; she'd been lulled into believing they were finished with the bad part of the night.
Not that Alex sounds angry, or like she's gearing up for another argument. It's just that Piper hates talking about this. She doesn't know how. Her fears always sound so obviously ridiculous when she tries to put them into words. It doesn't match the way they feel in her head, or sloshing around in her stomach.
"What about Polly?" She half buries the words against Alex's shirt collar.
"That she might be getting back together with your brother. I thought maybe you're, like...afraid she's gonna tell him about seeing us kiss."
"Yeah. I kinda am," Piper murmurs, trying to make her voice sound near sleep.
But then Alex says, "Maybe you should talk to her," and Piper's alarmed reply comes out all too awake.
"What? No, I can't, I don't even want to...bring that up to her. Ever."
"Okay. I get that. I just meant, if you're seriously afraid it's a real possibility. If you told her it's important to you that he doesn't hear shit, she'll probably listen. You guys are pretty good friends now, right?"
It's true she tries to hang out with Polly, just the two of them, fairly regularly now: she has ever since Polly's breakdown at the football game months ago. And it's also true that Piper's anxiety swells every time Polly mentions talking to Danny more.
But it swells at the thought of having that kind of conversation with Polly, too. Because surely she'd know exactly why Piper was concerned...
"I doubt she even thinks about it," Piper tells Alex. "I'm just being paranoid."
"Okay. Totally your call, Pipes," Alex replies, but Piper can hear the slight note of disappointment, and it forces her to remember the worst moment of this whole night: Alex asking her if she was sure about them.
Fuck, Piper wants to forget she ever said that. She hates that she made Alex doubt it.
"You okay?" Alex whispers against her temple, like she can feel Piper tensing around the memory.
"Yeah. Sorry," she answers, the apology automatic and not nearly enough.
Piper and Nicky are the last two at the dorms the next day, the others already on their way home for break. Nicky's got her car and promised to wait until the last straggler, even though it meant she had to witness Alex and Piper's goodbye - "Holy shit, you'd think you were about to get on separate lifeboats on the goddamn Titanic. It's less than three weeks."
Piper's phone buzzes with a text from her dad, and she looks up at Nicky, sitting across the dorm room from her on Alex's bed. "You can head out, my brother says he's finally leaving Overbrook now."
"Believe me, Chapman, I'm not in any hurry to head home. May hang out for awhile even after you're gone."
They're quiet for a moment, Nicky concentrating on her phone, fielding texts from some sophomore she'd made out with last night. Then, hesitant, Piper says, "Nicky? Your mom knows you're gay, right?"
Without looking up from her phone, Nicky replies, "Think so. I've definitely told her, but she has a tendency to forget little personal details about her daughter. My birthday, middle name, et cetera." Piper falls silent in the face of that blunt honesty, but after a moment Nicky looks up. "Why? Oooh!" Her eyes light up, gleaming with interest. "Are you planning a Christmas Coming Out? Making the Chapman family yuletide gay?"
"No."
"Fine, fine. It's not like that's a ridiculous question. You gotta do it eventually."
"What? Why?"
"Uh, cause you and Vause are clearly on track to have some really obnoxious wedding someday I'm going to have to give a toast at."
Piper smiles slightly at that image. "Oh, well yeah. Obviously. But that's like...way off, after college."
It's far enough away that it's easy to imagine. She has this vague, unformed notion that adulthood will bring an obvious moment when she is too old to care what her family or anyone else thinks. It's safe to believe that moment will come - Piper's got years to get herself there.
Christmas break brings none of Thanksgiving's guilty reprieve. Even though it hadn't lasted long, Piper kind of hates being away from Alex so soon after a fight. When her brain tangles itself up remembering the things they said to each other - are you still sure about this are you are are you? - merely texting Alex isn't as effective a relief.
The day after Christmas, she's restless and edgy and debating convincing her parents to let her go visit Alex, even though they've got plans to meet up at Nicky's lake house with the others for New Year's Eve in less than a week.
She's in her bedroom, one of Alex's playlists coming through her laptop speakers as she halfheartedly reviews for her history final. There's a knock on the door, and Piper frowns slightly. "Come in?" It comes out like a question: Cal's the only person who ever comes to her room, and he never bothers to knock.
"Surprise!" Polly bounds into her room, grinning, and for half a second Piper's heart stumbles with empty panic, like she's been caught at something. She even scans her room in a wild instinct - but of course there's no evidence of Alex there.
"Hey!" She stammers out after a moment of recovery. "What are you doing here?"
"Riding with Danny to the ski trip," she answers like The Ski Trip is something Piper should know about. "You guys are closer to Ryan's cabin than my place."
"Oh. Nice. When are you guys leaving?"
"In like an hour? Hopefully. But listen: you should come with us! Apparently the cabin is like huge, and it's right on the slopes. You ski, right?"
"No. I mean, yeah. I can ski. But I can't come. I'm supposed to meet up with Nicky and Janae and everyone on Thursday. Nicky's family lake house."
"Ugh, we're all such obnoxious boarding school kids, huh? Meeting at empty vacation homes across the state." Polly says with a mock groan, flopping comfortably onto Piper's bed. "But anyway...you should still come. Just drive your car separate. We're staying through New Year's anyway. You can hang out with us for a few days and then drive to Nicky's."
She has to drive to Alex's first, actually, to pick her up, but Piper doesn't say so. "Where's the cabin?"
"Sugar Mountain. Danny said that's where you guys used to go?"
"Yeah..."
Polly seems to sense the slightest chance of acquiescence, and she seizes onto it. "Please come. Danny talks a big game like he's going to be on Double Black Diamonds all weekend, and I'm not on that level. I need someone with less macho bullshit to ski with." She rolls her eyes talking about Piper's brother, but she's obviously pleased to have slipped right back into the established girlfriend role.
Piper refrains from pointing out what she feels is a safe assumption that Jessica and the other girls in Polly's crowd will probably be present, and uninterested in machismo based skiing.
The thing is, she's considering it. Piper knows how her parents think: if she tells them she wants to leave for Alex's early, it will inspire a passive aggressive guilt trip about how she sees her roommate every day of the semester, and yet wants to spend the bulk of breaks with her as well?
But leaving early for a separate event - especially a ski trip with Danny and his friends - would be much more acceptable, even though she'd be spending the same amount of her break away from home.
She could go tonight, stay just long enough to appease Polly, and then drive to Alex tomorrow.
"You're thinkin' about it," Polly half sing-songs at her. "I can tell. Say yeeess."
"Okay, yeah. Why not?" Polly lets out a victorious whoop, and Piper hastily adds, "I don't know if I'll stay very long, though."
"It'll be more fun than you're thinking," Polly assures her. "This is so great, do you realize we've never been drunk together?"
"That is true." Piper closes her laptop. "Give me a few minutes, I gotta pack."
"No problem. I'm gonna go tell Danny you're coming with."
"He'll be thrilled," she deadpans, watching Polly practically skip out of her bedroom before she grabs her phone to text Alex.
Text Message, Saturday, 4:34 pm
PIPER
[How do you feel about a slight change of plans]
[If I go with Danny and Polly to a ski trip tonight...I can bail tomorrow and come straight to your place.]
ALEX
[Color me intrigued.]
[I don't understand how the ski trip factors in, but I like the part about seeing you tomorrow.]
PIPER
[Idk my parents are weird. If they think I'm on two separate trips, they won't make me feel bad about being gone for a whole week over break.]
ALEX
[Faulty logic but I won't complain.]
[Please don't hurt yourself skiing.]
PIPER
[Don't know if I'll even stay long enough to hit the slopes.]
ALEX
[Who all's going on this thing? Or are you crashing a couples getaway?]
PIPER
[I don't know exactly. It's Ryan Bassett's family place.]
ALEX
[Ooh la la.]
PIPER
[I know right?]
[Sure to be all our favorite people]
ALEX
[Do you have to actually go? Could it just be a cover?]
PIPER
[I feel like I should. Vouch the excuse with Danny]
[Plus Polly's almost as good as guilting me as my parents.]
ALEX
[No comment.]
[Keep me posted. Not often we get glimpses of life beyond our superior social circle.]
PIPER
[Oh I plan to live text this whole experience.]
ALEX
[Accompanying snapchats too please]
The mountain house - cabin turns out to be a highly inappropriate descriptor - is as big as the Nichols' place at the lake, and there are more people there than Piper expected.
She'd predicted some of the attendees, of course: Jessica Wedge and the rest of Polly's crowd, plus Danny, Larry, and their group of friends. But there's also a whole group of senior girls Piper doesn't know that well, and what seems to be a large mix of male basketball and baseball players.
Within about five minutes of getting there, Piper's convinced she could sneak off right then without her brother noticing for the next week. Polly, though, seems intent on sticking close, leading Piper over to Jessica, Madison, Bailey, and Sarah, none of whom bother to disguise their surprise at her presence.
But she's already made eye contact with Larry, and she'd prefer to limit their interactions to a wave and smile across the room, so Piper sticks it out with the girls for now.
There's a massive pizza delivery around eight, and by then the scene around her resembles every house party Piper's ever seen in a movie. It's strange to think how foreign this is: she's been drunk, and stoned, plenty over the last year and a half at Litchfield - much more than she likely would have been if she'd stuck at her old high school - but boarding school doesn't really lend itself to huge parties. The closest they've come is winter and spring formal, where the drinking has to fly under the radar.
Tonight, though, it's all on the surface - literally, bottles and solo cups becoming the house's primary decor shockingly fast. There are beer pong and flip cup games on anything remotely resembling a table top, music playing through the giant flat screen television with its surround sound set up.
Piper makes herself a few drinks just to have something to do, and regrets it by the time she finishes the third, pizza gone and chaos peaked: if she was sober, she could have slipped out and gone right to Alex's. She may not be very experienced with parties, but this seems like the kind that's going to rage on for hours.
Polly finds her in the corner texting and links their arms together, dragging Piper toward of circle of people sitting on the floor. "Come play Circle of Death. It's a skill-less game, just excuses to drink."
"Didn't think anyone here needed excuses," Piper retorts, and Polly snorts in amusement.
"You sound like Alex sometimes."
"Huh?"
"All sarcastic."
They join the outskirts of the circle, and Polly nudges some guy Piper kind of recognizes from Danny's basketball games to make room. In the center of the circle is a tall can of PBR, a few cards stuck underneath the tab. The rest of the deck is splayed face down around the beer.
A senior girl across the circle is drawing a card from the floor as Piper folds her legs under her and sits. She holds it up, revealing a six of hearts. "Six. Chicks."
"Drink, ladies!" A guy beside her announces. The girls, Polly included, lift their cups to drink, and the guy on Polly's other side leans around her to look at Piper in interest.
"Hey, you're Danny's sister, right?"
Another boy overhears and turns toward them, too, adding, "Don't you date that Alex girl? The one with the weed?"
Chills breeze across Piper's skin at the question, but before she can answer, the first guy counters, "Nah, I thought Alex dates that Nicky chick."
They look at Piper, expectantly. She's aware of Polly listening, too. "Um, I'm just Alex's roommate."
"Wait, is she with Nicky?" Polly asks, eye suddenly bright with interest.
It's a knee jerk reaction, to hear Polly's question as an opportunity and blurt out, "They're just, like...it's not anything serious." She remembers her conversation with Alex at the ping-pong table, way back in her first month of Litchfield, jealous without the ability to name it as jealousy. "Friends with benefits, I guess."
Polly smirks. "Good, cause I was gonna say, Nicky cheats on her a lot."
Piper stares down at her drink, suffocated by contradictions. It's a harmless lie. It turns her stomach.
Someone in the circle draws an eleven of spades, and everyone in the circle seems to know that means to hold up three fingers for 'Never Have I Ever'. They're past two relatively harmless ones - "had a tattoo" or "gotten caught drinking at school" - before Vella Sadler, from Piper's chemistry class, smirks and shouts out, "Never have I ever...eaten pussy."
There's some jeers of unfairness from the boys, all of whom lower a finger (though there are probably some liars among them), and Piper's face heats up. She's afraid Polly is watching her but doesn't dare check.
She drains the rest of her Solo cup - tequila and lemonade and sprite - just for an excuse to get up, nudging Polly and muttering that she needs a refill. After, she sinks onto a free corner of one of the brown leather couches rather than return to the game, pulling out her phone like a security blanket.
PIPER
[Ugh.]
ALEX
[Uh-oh]
[Not having fun undercover?]
PIPER
[I was an idiot and drank and now I can't drive to your place to escape them.]
ALEX
[Don't blame you for needing alcohol around that crowd.]
[Just gotta stay camouflaged.]
"Hi."
Piper hits the side button of her iPhone, darkening the screen, as Larry Bloom collapses onto the couch cushion next to her. "Hey."
"I didn't know you were coming."
"Polly convinced me last minute. As in, an hour before they hit the road." Larry looks pleased by this information, and Piper quickly adds, "I'm only staying tonight. It's on my way to Nicky's, we're all meeting there for New Year's."
"Nice." Larry's quiet for a moment, sipping from his own cup. "So. You having fun tonight at least?"
"Yep," she replies automatically, but it's so unconvincing that he immediately starts laughing at her. She makes a face, amending, "Well. It's okay."
"Not into parties?"
"I don't dislike them on principle or anything. I can kind of see the appeal, if it's a party made up of your actual friends." She says that harsher than she means to, and a little loud; she's well on her way to properly drunk.
But so is Larry, judging by how long he nods before finally answering, "This doesn't really seem like your friends' kinda scene, though."
"I dunno...Nicky and Poussey like anything where there's drinking. And I bet Janae and I could be a kickass beer pong team."
"Wellll. Would you have any interest in being a mediocre ass beer pong team?" Off her blank look, he clarifies, "With me. Sorry, did you not get that? I shoulda said it."
"Oh. Like, you wanna play?'
"If you want."
"Ummm..." She glances over at the closest, and largest, beer pong table in the dining room; her brother and Ryan Bassett have been playing for at least half an hour.
Piper has no idea if she'll be any good at beer pong. But she really likes beating Danny at stuff.
And playing a game surrounded by a drunk and captive audience is probably better than staying alone on this couch with Larry.
"Sure, let's do it."
"Sweet." He beams, getting up off the couch. "One sec, I'll go tell them we got the next available round."
There's another pair waiting in front of them, so it's another fifteen minutes before the play, but Larry spends the interim explaining the House Rules...beer pong turns out to be more complicated than Piper had assumed, but she decides not to worry too much about what bonuses can be achieved from bouncing balls or landing in the same cup as your partner. For her first time playing, she'll be lucky to be able to get a ball in a cup at all.
Danny and Ryan are still the standing champions when she and Larry step up to the table. Danny's obvious wasted, his bravado and natural obnoxiousness cranked up to eleven. "Uh-ooooh, Pooh Bear's stepping up to the plate!"
She grits her teeth and scowls at him. "Don't call me that."
He ignores her, practically yelling, playing to the crowd. "You know we're five and oh, Pooh, so don't feel bad if it's a crushing defeat. I'll try not to skunk you."
His partner, Ryan, slings an arm around Danny's shoulder and points right at Piper. "You know skunking means streaking, right? That's the punishment."
Danny thwacks him in the chest. "Dude, fuck off, you're not making my little sister streak."
Ryan's eyes widen. "That's your sister?" He looks at her again, as though reassessing. "You never told me you had a hot sister."
Piper grimaces distastefully as Danny corrects him, "Don't even bother, Ry, not gonna happen. Ask Bloomer if you don't believe me."
Piper narrows her eyes across the table. "Fuck off, Danny."
Beside her, Larry flushes and mutters in an undertone, "I'll just refill these..."
As he pours his beer into the triangle of Solo cups, Piper pulls out her phone and promptly googles, Beer pong tips.
She really, really wants to beat him. Th ere's no time for a learning curve.
But it does takes her a few tries to adjust to the unfamiliar motion - reciting the internet's tips silently to herself, thumb and middle finger, throw in an arch, all in the wrist, eyes on the back rim of the cup - but Larry keeps them even with Danny (two cups for each team) until Piper finally scores one.
Larry whoops beside her, pulling her into a sideways hug that's probably a little patronizing - like it's an amazing accomplishment for her - but Piper's elated enough to reciprocate.
"Don't get cocky, Pooh," Danny warns her before chugging the beer from the cup she'd landed.
"Don't get nervous, Danny," she counters. "Remember your first year of YMCA basketball."
His smile drops into a murderous, warning look as his friends ooh and demand to know what happened at the YMCA.
"Will you go already?" He snarls, directed at Larry, who tosses the Ping Pong ball without much preparation and misses.
After that, Danny seems to shift into an altogether more serious phase of his beer pong game, all intensity and concentration, no longer joking or trash talking between turns. It doesn't do much to help his game, though, and Piper and Larry both score additional cups before Danny and Ryan do, leaving them with only one left to eliminate.
"Oh my God, are you winning?" Polly sidles up to Piper, then raises her voice so Danny can hear. "Please beat Danny, this game makes him so fucking antisocial."
"No problem," Piper says sweetly, directing the response at her brother rather than Polly.
It takes a few rounds, with Piper cursing loudly every time she throws and misses, and Danny and Ryan nearly catch up - aiming at a singular cup is harder - but she beats him. It's her throw, a perfect swish into the center of the red cup that results in cheers from the crowd, Danny's jaw clenching in fury, and Piper's own obnoxious victory dance as she calls over the noise, "Hey, Danny, how do your basketball skills not help you out here, like, at all?"
He tries to save face - "You won one game tonight. One. You caught me five in already." - but the crowd is definitely ooh-ing at her burns, not his. It's a triumphant, glowing feeling. She takes out her phone.
PIPER
[Just crusehd my brother in beer pong. Broke his winning streak and ruined his night, no big deal.]
[So the party is looking slightly up]
ALEX
[Congrats, babe. Go Assassins on his ass.]
[His ass-assins? Idk there's probably a pun there.]
"Kind of a kickass team after all, huh?" Larry says, nudging his shoulder against hers and making Piper quickly put her phone back in her pocket.
"Yeah, that was fun. Thanks."
"You know we play again, right? Winners stay up." He nods across the table, where Jessica Wedge and some guy are setting cups back up.
And, hell, Piper would really enjoy beating her, too.
Text Message, 12:13 am
PIPER
[update: Just wonk game 4]
ALEX
[That's super hot.]
PIPER
[I know right pretty prod of myself]
ALEX
[As you should be]
[Who's your partner? They pulling their weight or are you carrying all these victories?]
PIPER
[Polly.]
[Shes fin but its mostly me]
ALEX
[A little drunk there, Pipes?]
[You're not winning any textual spelling bees tonight.]
PIPER
[Drinking a lot of beer.]
ALEX
[Hence the name of the game I guess.]
[Keep crushin it, babe.]
PIPER
[Just for you]
[;)]
ALEX
[HA I know you're drunk when you start using emojis.]
[Such a flirt.]
Piper and Larry lose on their fifth game, which brings Danny some comfort, even though he isn't the one to beat them.
She ends up on the couch with Larry again; he's drunk and slurring out hyperbolic recaps of their victories. It's darker in the house now, the living room getting by with dim lamps and Christmas lights, and the music seems louder.
Without preamble, Larry suddenly nudges her elbow and says, voice full of beer soaked confidence, "So I know why you broke up with me when you did."
"I didn't technically break up with you," she says. It's always been important for her to clarify that.
He clutches his chest. "Oh, wait...so we're still together?"
Piper giggles; everything he says seems funnier right now. "I mean because we weren't technically together."
"You walked out of a Cheesecake Factory on Valentine's Day," he insists, and hearing it stated outright like that makes her keep giggling. Larry starts, too, talking around laughter, "So I get to call it a break up, since that's the kind of self... self-deprecating anecdote I can tell to make girls feel bad for me in college."
"Why would you want girls to feel bad for you?"
"I'm planning to play the whole Nerd thing for all I can. It's pretty much what I've got to work with."
"True."
"Hey!"
"I was just agreeing with you."
"Fine. But back to what...the thing I started to say."
"You started to say something?"
"I said I knew why you broke up with me. It was because you were still in freshmen mode."
"I was a sophomore."
"Yeah, but. But. You started as a sophomore. So it was still your first year here. So you were still in freshmen mode even without being an actual freshmen."
"What does freshmen mode have to do with the Cheesecake Factory?"
"See, I have a theory."
"A theory."
"Freshmen at boarding schools hardly ever get into serious relationships. Basically for all the reasons you said. It's all so new, it's like...who needs more? Freshmen are getting so used to the new friends and the new school that having to cross the lake all the time to see a significant other is a pain in the ass."
"You've thought this out a lot," Piper murmurs absently, only half-listening.
"'S why I called it a theory. And here's where it gets interesting. That's freshmen mode, right? And then it comes full circle by senior year...same thing. Seniors don't wanna start new things. They're on their way out. And freshmen don't wanna start new things cause they're...on their way in."
"Wow."
"Yeah. I'm thinking of writing a thinkpiece for the paper."
"You think the fact that freshmen and seniors aren't likely to get into relationships is groundbreaking enough for an article?"
"Not particularly, but Overbrook's school paper has a very low bar for groundbreaking."
Piper huffs out a laugh. Larry's arm has ended up flushed against hers, and he's tilting his head a little so his breath lands on her cheek when he talks. The pitch of his voice dipping, he says, "So, what I'm saying...there would be no reason for you to leave Senior Me alone in a Cheesecake Factory." She turns to look at him, finding him closer than she expected. His furrows his eyebrows, poking out his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout. "All alone. With an unopened gift. On Valentine's Day. Alone. Valentine's. Cheesecake."
Piper laughs. Then he kisses her.
She doesn't stop it.
It could go a long way to calm Piper's anxieties, back at school. The knowledge that this room full of people, including her brother and Polly, have seen her make out with a boy, on a couch in the middle of a house party while The Chainsmokers play.
It's a safe choice, because Larry is graduating at the end of the school year, and going off to a college out of state. This can just be a one time thing, he's not going to try to take her on dates or be her boyfriend.
This party doesn't even count, none of this is PIper's real life. She's undercover, she's camouflaged. She's not even supposed to be here.
But Piper doesn't think any of that until after they've finished kissing.
In the middle of it, and even at the beginning, she's too drunk to try to rationalize. All she knows is this is easy. To kiss a boy without thinking about it or caring who sees. And she likes Larry. Only that, only likes him, for these few hours at the beer pong table and Ryan Bassett's leather couch, and that's easy, too.
After awhile, though, he moves away from her enough to mumble out, "You want to maybe move to a bedroom?"
"I think, um, that all the bedrooms here are claimed."
"I meant for just...for like a little while." He raises his eyebrows, a question.
Piper blinks up at him, her thoughts all clouded with alcohol and the strange, lazy disconnect that comes from kissing for too long - eyes closed, surroundings blocked out - but it only takes a second for brutal, shrieking clarity to level her.
"No. No."
"Oh. Okay, that's fi - "
"No, no, no, I can't...I can't have done this."
Larry frowns, face twisting in confusion like he can't possibly make sense of her verb tense. "Huh?"
"Sorry, I'm sorry..." Piper stammers, though she doesn't mean to apologize to Larry. Her hands are shaking. She shoots up from the couch, stating firmly, "I'm really drunk."
It's an absolution too late, a request for off the record after she's already spilled secrets.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck.
It's okay. It's not so bad. It's not like she slept with him.
It's not like it mattered.
It could go a long way to calm Piper's anxieties...
It's a safe choice, because Larry is graduating...
This party doesn't even count...
She stumbles out a side door in the kitchen and vomits into the snow, emptying herself of every stupid, worthless kiss.
Then she sits on the very edge of the porch, her shoes sunk into the slush, shivering in her jeans and thin sweater against the harsh, punishing chill in the air, and Piper gets out her phone and calls Alex.
"Hey, you." Her voice is so warm. "Does this mean you finally lost a game? Or did you retire in a blaze of glory?"
"We lost," Piper says softly. She closes her eyes, lets her forehead drop into her palm. She's dizzy and her throat feels scraped raw. She wonders if Alex can hear it in her voice, hear that she's different, hear what she did -
"You okay?"
"Yeah, I, uh...just feel kinda sick."
"Fuck, Pipes, do not puke on the phone with me, okay? I love you, but I can't listen to that. I'll get vicarious nausea."
"Don't need to worry about that. I did it before I called."
"Ooh, wow, seriously, babe? Shit, you hit it hard tonight...trying to make up for your sober formal?"
"Ha."
"Hey, listen. How about you go get some water and go to sleep, okay?"
"No. No, I want to talk to you."
"Okay, if you're sure. Just remember the rule...avoid your mouthpiece if you're gonna throw up again. And I mean that in the most loving way possible."
"I didn't wake you up, did I?"
"Nah. I've just been watching TV and enjoying your updates."
"Is your mom working?"
"Yeah. Stuck with late shifts for the next week since she got Christmas off."
"I'm, um. I'm gonna come straight to you in the morning, Alex. I don't wanna ski or anything, I'll just get up and get in the car."
"Uh. You know I can't wait to see you, Pipes, but maybe wait to assess the hangover situation. Don't want you driving when you feel like shit."
"Yeah. Okay. I think I'll be good to go though."
They're quiet for a long moment.
"Pipes?"
"Hmm? What?"
"Are you crying?"
"No, I just...my nose is running cause it's fucking freezing out here."
"You're outside?!"
"Yeah. The music is still on in the house so I had to go where I could hear you."
"Piper. Go inside now."
"But - "
"It's like thirty fucking degrees out. And you're in the mountains, so it's worse. Go in. We'll text, okay?"
"I wanna stay on the phone."
"You sure everything's okay? Did something happen?"
"No, I just...I don't want to be here."
"I know. Shit shows with people you hate aren't fun."
"No."
"Do you have somewhere to sleep?"
"I'm not sure."
"You know I'd come get you if I could, right?"
"Yeah. I know. Cause you're the best."
"Damn right. But listen. We'll see each other tomorrow, okay?"
"Okay."
She hears Alex sigh into the phone. After a moment, she says, "Fuck it, you know what? Give me a few minutes, let me call Nicky or Poussey."
"Wait why for them?"
"I bet Nicky's still awake, it's kind of far but...I'll tell her I'll cover all the New Year's booze if she comes and gets me. We can take her car to you, and then go straight to the lake house. She'd probably be thrilled to leave early. I would have to drive your car...yeah, that could work. It'd take her like an hour to get to me, though, and then another two for us to get up to Sugar..."
"Alex, no, you don't...you don't have to do that. No. Thank you but that's a lot of extra driving and we still wouldn't get to the lake until morning. It doesn't make sense."
"I don't like you miserable and sleeping on the floor."
"It'll be fine. There's at least one couch per person, seriously. I'm just drunk and whiny. I'll be asleep before you can get here."
"Sure?"
"Yes. Thanks."
"Okay...maybe go stake a claim on one of those couches just in case. And get out of the damn cold."
"Okay."
"Text me when you're up in the morning."
"I will."
"But again: not while you're puking."
"I won't."
"You good?"
"Yeah."
"Love you, Pipes."
"I love you, too.
"Night."
"Night, Alex. Goodnight."
She waits until she hears Alex's side of the line go dead, then drops her head into her heads, loosening her throat enough to thoroughly cry.
By the time Piper goes inside, her hands are numb, her face stinging from wind and sticky with tears. The party had actually wound down quite a bit while she and Larry were on the couch - Fuck, how long had they fucking made out? - and by now the music is off and more than half the crowd seems to have dispersed to other rooms.
Piper half stumbles into the kitchen, the only room still fully lit, and grabs an empty Solo cup to fill with tap water, rinsing the taste of bile and shame from inside her mouth.
The furniture in the living room is occupied, the carpet spread with sleeping bags and, in the corner, an air mattress set up by people who were obviously more prepared for this sort of trip.
She doesn't see her brother or Polly anywhere. Or Larry, thank God.
Her stomach feels clenched and watery, but Piper still wants to drink more, wants to force alcohol into her bloodstream until it washes out the memory of this whole night. She's never blacked out drunk before; the idea of it has always kind of scared her, but now she's craving the obliteration.
If she can't remember kissing Larry, it's like it never happened. And Alex won't be able to sense it on her, won't realize anything's wrong if even Piper herself manages to forget something is.
But it's too big to get rid of, like alcohol can't drown the worst parts of her. She just manages to drink enough to fall asleep on the living room carpet, blanketed only by guilt.
A/N: I kinda wish I had more pure fluff to post, given the circumstances of, uh...the world at large, but this is where we are in the outline. And like I said, I didn't want to drop this in without being able to keep things moving relatively quickly. So stayed tuned for updates. And thanks to anyone who's stuck with this thing. I hope everyone's doing okay. 3