I'm finally back with this story! This chapter was, by far, the hardest to write. It's rated M to be safe. It doesn't contain smut, or not in a direct way, but it does contain the reason I started writing this story in the first place: my secret. Very emotional moment for me you guys, I'm putting my secret out for the entire world to read and I'm nervous as hell. Hope you like this chapter at least a bit. I'm curious to see what you guys think of this one. Like I said, hardest one and it'll take me a few hours to recover from writing it.
Let me know what you think ...
Alex arrives home after an evening of parent-teacher meetings, and she's exhausted. "Fucking parents these days," she thinks as she remembers all the mothers and fathers that were acting up during the meetings. It was always the teacher's fault, never their children's if something went wrong. Alex tried not to snap at them, but her patience was wearing thin by the end of it all.
She opens the door, expecting Piper to come greet her in the hallway or maybe the kitchen, but it doesn't happen. Almost all the lights are out, and Alex is confused. Piper should be home by now, she only had morning classes today.
"Pipes? You home?"
No response.
"Piper? Where are you babe?"
Still nothing.
Alex is worried a bit, but brushes it off as the blonde being tired and falling asleep on their bed. She puts her dinner (lovingly cooked by her girlfriend) in the microwave and waits for it to heat up. It will take a few minutes so she goes to the bathroom down the hall to freshen up a bit, wash her face and hands. She pushes the door open and flicks the lights on, but she wasn't expecting to see the setting before her.
Piper is sitting on the floor of the shower, a photograph in her hands and blood trailing down her wrists. She is crying her heart out, full-blown sobs shaking her body. Alex has no idea of how long the blonde has been sitting here. She just knows she has to act, now. She steps into the shower and picks up her girlfriend, carrying her out of the bathroom and into the bedroom. Piper clings to Alex like she's about to lose it all, and it feels like that for her.
As soon as Alex places Piper on their bed, Piper curls up into a ball, holding the photograph and her phone in her hands. Alex sits down next to her, not having one clue on what to do now. The last time Piper cut herself was years ago, and the brunette has no idea what happened to trigger Piper to do that again. She wants to find out though, she hates, absolutely hates seeing the younger woman like this.
"Pipes …" She rubs the blonde's back soothingly, still feeling the sobs wreck her body every few seconds. Piper can't stop crying. The photograph in her hands is one that was taken years ago, by herself and she couldn't let go of it. She tried to, thousands of times, but the guilt that was eating at her from inside prevented her from doing it.
It takes Piper a solid half hour before she's calmed down enough to breathe properly. Alex, who has long forgotten about dinner, is still incredibly worried. She's wondering what happened today to cause this kind of reaction within Piper.
"Pipes? You okay?"
"I … I don't know Al. I don't – I don't know."
"Did something happen today?"
"Yes …"
"You want to talk about it?" Piper starts to think back of when she walked out of the Barnard college building earlier during the day. The person she saw before her was someone she never thought she'd see again. It was even worse than seeing Larry again.
"You! Piper Chapman!"
Piper twisted her head around, trying to find out who called her name. She turned around completely once she laid eyes on the one person she never wanted to see again. Tim's mother. She'd only met her once before, that one time that Tim insisted on going to his place after school, saying that no one would be home. Piper, crazy in love with him, of course complied and let him drive them to his place.
They talked animatedly during the ride, holding hands over the gearshift the entire time. They hung out for an hour before unexpectedly, Tim's mother arrived home. Tim too was surprised but immediately bounced back and introduced Piper to his mom. You could tell he was proud to have someone to introduce.
Tim's mother was very much like her own, except she was subtly harsh. Tim didn't notice, but Piper could clearly feel that she wasn't and never would be good enough for her son. They shook hands and talked for a few minutes before Piper asked her boyfriend to take her back home. She didn't want to arrive late for dinner.
Now though, she was freaking out. Things with Tim had ended dramatically, and his mother blamed the blonde for everything that happened. She froze once she locked eyes with the older woman, and she couldn't move a muscle as she came up to her.
"You fucking murderer! How dare you walk the streets still?! The fuck's wrong with you?!"
Piper is snapped out of her thoughts by Alex turning her around to face her. Alex had slipped off her shoes and jeans and crawled into bed next to her girlfriend. The blonde was obviously distraught and she wants to do everything to help her. Tears are streaming down her face constantly, and Alex kisses them away one by one.
"Pipes …"
"Al … I – I have something … to tell you. Something from my past that you don't know about."
"What are you talking about baby girl?"
"Remember when I said that there was something I was scared of telling you? Something about my past?"
"Yeah but what does that have to do with today?" Alex is confused.
"I ran into someone today, someone I never wanted to see again …"
Piper sits up, pushing the pillows against the headboard and sitting up against them. Alex follows suit, putting her arm around Piper's shoulders and pulling her into her own body. It grounds Piper, and she hopes that the brunette won't leave her after telling her about her past. She's afraid and pretty sure that Alex will though, and she'll never forgive herself anything. Alex is the love of her life, but she's sure she's about to lose her.
She picks up the photograph from next to her and slowly traces the two young faces on it. She holds it out for Alex to see and hold, while she mentally prepares herself for the talk that they are about to have. Knowing that the stakes are incredibly high, she takes a deep, shaky breath.
"It's okay Pipes, you can tell me. I'm here and I won't leave."
"This … this is Tim. Tim was my boyfriend when I was sixteen …"
"What happened baby? Why are you so sad about it? Did it end badly?"
"Yeah well bad is an understatement. Tim, in the beginning was incredibly sweet. The typical gentleman you know, buying me flowers every week, opening doors for me, paying for dinner and we'd been dating for a month when he asked me to be his girlfriend. I said yes … I mean of course I did. I was sixteen, all I wanted was a boyfriend you know …"
"I don't Pipes but go on …"
"Well … I didn't tell people about it immediately. Not even Polly … Anyway, as soon as we become boyfriend-girlfriend, he became very, like, possessive … He was always mad when I talked to other boys, and he'd demand that I allowed him to pick me up after school and drive me home and so much more … I was getting sorta scared."
"It's okay Pipes. I'm here, you can talk to me …"
"About a month into the relationship it was October by then, I had planned on going to a party with the few friends I had. Someone in the neighborhood was throwing a birthday party and I had told him that I was going with my friends. He started discussing with me, he wanted to be there to show me off, but I told him that I really just wanted to hang out with my friends."
"Did he accept it?"
"Yeah he did, well initially …"
"Pipes, what happened?"
"He showed up … he fucked showed up anyway. He got so angry that I didn't invite him and that I didn't want him to meet my friends … we fought, like big time. He stormed off after about an hour of jabbing at each other and I was furious too …"
"The next day I tried to make amends, texted him so many times and tried to call him. He didn't respond … not one response during the day … I was lying in bed when I got a text, from Tim. It," the sobs are coming up by now and Piper has trouble swallowing the lump in her throat. "It said that he was going to – to commit …" Alex knows what's coming on, there's only one word that can follow that last word.
"Pipes? Did he- did he kill himself?"
Piper can't answer right away. She can't help but cry when she hears those words again. Those words bounced around in her mind for months on end, and she finally cracks. It's been five years now, and Piper needs to let go of all these feelings. She's feeling incredibly guilty, knowing that she's never going to forgive herself.
After ten minutes of crying her heart out, Piper looks up at Alex and nods her head. A whispered "yes", one that Alex has to strain to hear, and Alex knows that Piper is breaking down entirely.
"He – he said it was all my fault. And it is. I ran out of the house in the middle of the night and went to his place but I was too late. He was gone … I walked back home and saw someone lying in the middle of the street, not moving anymore but there was blood everywhere, I could see it with the street lights. I slowly walked up and …"
"No … Pipes, no."
"Yeah it was him … I called 911 and they came right away. They pushed me aside and got him to the hospital as soon as possible. They called his parents, I wasn't allowed to come with him … He didn't make it Al, he didn't make it. And it's all my fault, I'm the reason he's dead Al, it's my fault."
Piper rocks back and forth with her knees pulled up against her body and her arms around them as she repeats that last phrase again and again. Alex has never seen her beautiful, sweet, innocent girlfriend like this before. Not even after Larry raping her. She doesn't really know what to do; it's a lot to take in. Not only did Piper have a boyfriend at sixteen, the blonde thinks she's at fault, being the reason this fucker committed suicide.
"Pipes … Pipes listen. Please listen to me baby." Piper stops rocking back and forth and loosens up a little, but she still doesn't dare to look the brunette in the eyes. She's afraid of what she'll find in them. Alex begs for her attention and Piper nods, once, to signal that she's listening.
"Pipes … It's not your fault okay? It's not."
"But-"
"Uh uh. No buts about it Piper. This was not your fault. I know you feel like it is, and I hope that you can let it go, because I know that you're not at fault here. Tim made that decision, he was the one who decided to take his life and blame someone else. If you ask me, he's an incredible coward. I mean; who does that?"
Piper says nothing, she can't.
"Pipes … Please look at me." Alex has to ask her a few times before Piper makes the slightest movement towards the brunette. Alex takes this as a sign and puts her hand under the blonde's chin softly to lift it upwards. The moment she locks eyes with the baby blues she fell in love with all those years ago, she sees guilt and self-hate in them. The brunette softly presses a kiss to the younger woman's wet lips, reassuring Piper that she's not leaving her, and never will.
"It's not your fault Piper. It's not … I'll keep saying it until you believe it, every single day if I have to." She kisses Piper's entire face: her cheeks, temples, forehead, eyelids, nose and finally the soft pink lips. Piper sighs once she feels her girlfriend's plump lips on her own. She doesn't deserve it, or so she thinks, but she feels that one day, she might just heal from all of this. And Alex, the most beautiful woman to ever walk the planet, will be right by her side.
Things might be looking up for her. Who knows.
They kiss languidly and passionately. Alex wants Piper to feel that she still loves her, probably even more so than before. It took incredible bravery for the blonde to confess these things about her past like that. She knows that this probably is what she talked about with her therapist, but she's glad that Piper trusts her enough to share this story with her as well. Piper is an incredibly strong young woman in her eyes, and she admires her for making it this far. She can imagine that many young girls would've done something completely different.
Piper kisses Alex to convey the amount of gratitude she feels for the brunette. She can't believe that Alex is still here, kissing her with everything she has. Piper knows that it's a long road coming up, one towards self-forgiveness, but with Alex by her side, she might just get there. She might just make it; something she never expected after it all happened. She was sure that she would never have someone to love her again; that she would never make it this far.
The kiss ends naturally after a few minutes, but Piper keeps her eyes closed until she hears Alex chuckle a bit. She opens her eyes, still not believing that the brunette is still here. She feels like she doesn't deserve the older woman's love, and she's not sure what she's done to deserve it. She smiles softly, her eyes expressing incredible gratitude as she looks at her girlfriend.
She's still my girlfriend!
"I love you Pipes … so fucking much. Thank you for sharing this with me. I know that it must've been hard for you but thank you for trusting me …"
"I love you too Al. Thank – thank you so much for forgiving me. I don't know how long it'll take for me to forgive myself, but it means the world to me that you're still here. Know that."
"I'll always be here for you baby girl. My beautiful, sweet baby girl. Come here." Alex pulls Piper into her arms as she lies down onto the mattress. Tonight has drained both of them and the brunette knows that her girlfriend has been having nightmares and losing sleep because of this for a long time. Piper puts her phone on the nightstand beside Alex, keeping the photograph in her hands. She doesn't know what to do with it. She kept it, out of her feeling of guilt, but now she doesn't know if she should hold onto it.
"What are you thinking babe? Talk to me."
"I don't know what to do with this," she says as she holds up the photograph. She's cuddled up on the brunette's chest, hearing the soothing heartbeat under her, an arm stroking her back in big circles. She has her leg thrown over Alex's middle but her hands are still holding onto the photograph.
"Whatever you think is best Piper. Do you want to keep it?"
"I'm not sure."
"Tell you what … We'll put it in the drawer here, and whenever you decide what you want to do with it, we'll get it out and do whatever you want. Sound good?"
"Okay … yeah sounds good." Piper hands the picture over to Alex, who looks at the sixteen-year-old-Piper sitting next to the person who shattered her baby girl's heart. She wants to rip it apart and throw it away, but it's not her decision. She puts it away before cuddling with Piper. She softly moves the blonde's body until she's on her other side, facing away from Alex. She prompts Piper to lift her head and puts her arm underneath it. The other arm comes around Piper's middle and she pulls the blonde incredibly close to her own body; nuzzling her neck while she's there.
Piper can't help but smile, this is the safest she's ever felt. She finally told Alex everything she needs to know now, and it's liberating in a sense. The guilt isn't gone completely, but she has a feeling that it might just go away over time. It's taken her five years to talk to someone other than her therapist about it, and it feels good to let people in on her secret. She falls asleep quickly, hearing the soothing words from her girlfriend whispered in her ear so softly.
Alex follows suit after an hour of watching her beautiful, strong girlfriend sleeping peacefully. When they wake up in the morning, they're still in the same position and it's a good thing neither of them has anywhere to be because they don't want to let go of this feeling. It feels so fucking good, right to be here, together, in each other's arms.
Two months after Piper's confession, Alex sees that the photograph in the drawer is gone. She smiles. Piper is in the kitchen and Alex walks up to stand behind her at the counter. She hugs the blonde from behind, pressing kisses to Piper's neck and making her squirm.
"You did the right thing Pipes." Piper knows what Alex is talking about and smiles as she turns around in her lover's arms. They look into each other's eyes, pure love radiating between them.
"It had to be done Al. I'm glad I did."
Alex kisses Piper softly but the blonde clearly feels everything that the older woman is trying to convey: love, reassurance, forgiveness and so much more. She kisses her back and their tongues mesh beautifully, moans filling the room.
The rest of the day and night is filled with a million whispered "baby's", "I love you's" and "thank you's", endless hours of giving each other everything, and it's a night they'll never, ever forget. Piper still has a long way to go, but by now, she's sure she'll make it. As long as Alex is coming with her.
So?
