She thought it was a momentary thing, something tangled up in the fluttering – golden leaves, patches of blue sky, and the sound of laughter trailing behind her – and she told herself it was just an experience, just a thing that girls sometimes do with other girls, a step below whatever a good man could offer and a step above the world of tinker-toys and doe-eyed dolls.
She thought it would end easily, held fast in her chest like a memory – warm with sunlight, soft palms sliding over her skin, beautifully hidden under the hem of her dress – she thought that it was nothing, not really, not enough to be called forever, not enough to cry over, not enough to cause her to lose friends and to ruin parents, not enough to risk everything stable and sure for...
/ /
It's hot.
That's all that Piper can think about right now as she swings lazily, toes skimming over the grass as she goes back and forth, and she can hear her brothers talking over her shoulder, off in the distance as they try to fix that old car.
They curse every now and then and Piper leans back as far as she can, hands wrapped around the ropes tightly as her body tilts and tilts until she can them – all upside-down, covered in tar-black grease – and she laughs at the sight.
Idiots, the both of them.
Of course, she'd like the car to work. It would be nice to go to the drive-in up in Morrisville, see that new movie with Elvis in it, or to slip away to the rock quarry after school with Polly – who would bring Pete and Pete would bring Larry.
They've necked, twice, Piper and Larry. Once at a dance, tucked away near the boys restroom, and it was pretty nice at the time; Larry was all flustered afterwards and Piper ran off to gab about it with Polly, giggling into Mrs. Wilson's homemade punch.
The other time was out in one of the fields behind Larry's house, the two of them looking at stars one minute and then making-out the next. She remembers his hands the most, the way they stumbled around in the hopes of stealing second – only to be batted away.
It's not that Piper is a prude or anything, but as nice as Larry is – and he is, probably the nicest boy in the whole town – she just never felt like going further, not yet anyway.
"Goddamn it, Cal, where'd you put the fuckin' wrench?"
Danny's voice cuts through the heat, barreling over the cicadas up in the trees, and Piper rolls her eyes as she watches Cal shrug from his perch on the fence and then as he hops down in a rush when Danny starts for him, the two of them tearing down the dirt road that leads to the house.
Piper sighs and goes back to swinging, allowing her driving dreams to drift away on the last of the summer breeze.
/ /
It's not necessarily strange or anything, the way Piper reacts when she first sees the girl – long black hair and bright red lipstick, green gaze like something a city might have created, all sharp and quick – it's more like a funny little pause, air suddenly caught in her lungs as this girl moves in next her, trying to avoid the afternoon crush in the hallway.
But Piper finds herself getting knocked into the wall anyway because someone pushed into the girl beside her and the both of them end up scowling at Freddie Waymaker as he sprints away.
And then they are looking at one another.
"What a jerk, right?"
Piper feels a grin pulling at her lips and she nods her head in agreement.
"He always has been."
The girl's face lights up in shared humor, toothy smile brighter than anything Piper has ever seen, and there's that breathless sensation again - stronger this time and almost dizzying, swirling around Piper's head as if she were going to faint straight to the floor.
"I'm Alex. Alexandra Vause to be exact, but that's only when my mother is sore at me."
And the sound of that name seems to overwhelm all those other sounds – metal locker doors slamming shut, the milling voices of other students, class bells ringing their way into another hour of learning – the cadence of that name settles into Piper's ears like a song...
"I'm Piper, Piper Chapman."
...and if things weren't too strange before, Piper certainly thinks that they must be by now.
/ /
Right here, as autumn becomes winter, is when Alex – drunk on booze stolen from Diane Vause's liquor cabinet, lips sticky and bittersweet – kisses Piper on the mouth.
They had blown off those other plans, those other plans with boys and football and Piper knew that Polly would call her the next day, all mad and jealous, but Piper didn't care; Piper doesn't care for much of anything lately other than Alex Vause.
Friday nights have found them reading passages to each other, secretive words that the good people of this county like to ban, and Alex would stay through to the morning, shimmying out of Piper's bedroom window like a thief – all grins across the dew-damp lawn as she runs away.
Saturdays tended to shoo them out into the woods, shoes off so that they could feel the dirt and the rocks and the liquid touch of creeks – Piper shrieking when something slimy brushed against her foot, grabbing onto Alex and causing the two of them to tumble into the water.
But right here, as another Sunday slips away from them, is when Alex's mouth presses against Piper's – shy at first, then it slants and opens and Piper gasps because it feels far too good to be real.
Right here, with the silent and cold grayness of the rock quarry as their only witness, is when Piper falls helplessly and hopelessly in love.
/ /
It's understood that this just won't fly with anyone and so they don't tell a soul.
Piper still goes on dates with Larry, swaying in his arms as the jukebox plays Jo Stafford, and Piper knows that half the boys in the school drool over Alex, propping themselves up on the girl's desk with offers of rides home or malts down at Faye's.
Alex always turns them down, but in a manner so winsome that every jilted would-be Romeo swoons instead of stews.
"You could have your pick around here, you know?"
The words are low, caught between the twilight and the confines of Piper's bedroom, but Alex hears them all the same and her fingertips slowly come to a stop – resting where Piper's sleeping gown ends and her thigh begins, unbearably close to doing something that neither of them can ever take back.
"I know, Pipes... I've already made my choice, though."
Piper never did let Larry get past the collar, gently shoving him away even as he pleaded, leaving him frustrated on her doorstep, but with every inch that Alex covers – nearer now, nearer still, touch so light while Piper's insides start to tremble – there is something hot and potent coming to life, a slick want that causes Piper's hips to rock on instinct once Alex arrives, once Alex builds from tentative to sure strokes.
And it's understood that this – Alex and Piper, together as they are now, all eager hands and bitten-back moans and a creaking wooden frame beneath them – just won't fly with anyone, not in this town or in this state, maybe not anywhere in the world...
...so they don't tell a soul, waving like friends would whenever they see each other in the cafeteria, Piper being tugged around by Polly or listening to Larry yammer on about something while Alex laughs with a few of the kids who are in the theater club, the tell-tale hint of smoke more than likely clinging to their clothes, and they don't let on – not for a single second – that everything in their tiny little universe has now changed.
/ /
They are dancing around to a new 45 that Polly got for Christmas, barefoot and ridiculous and earning a shout or two from Polly's mother ("Keep it down, girls! This isn't a dance-hall!"), but that just makes them bust out giggling and they start pushing into one another until they fall into a heap - jarring the record on the player and Tab Hunter's crooning skips before it rights itself again.
Polly has spent most of the evening talking about Pete, about how they made-out underneath the bleachers and she let him slip past the barrier of her blouse – a little too fast, a little too rough – but it was still nice and Polly thinks that she might go all the way with this boy.
"Are you sure he's the one, Pol?"
"I don't know, I think he is... But even if he isn't, I want to know what it's like... Don't you, too?"
And girls are not supposed to want it, that's what they've always been told, and it didn't matter if they grew flush with feelings, with indescribable longings that only turned rampant as time went on, girls are supposed to wait for marriage, to wait for their husbands to introduce them to the pleasures of sex.
Of course, every girl has their own story – an unexpected pressure between their thighs, stirring them from sleep – and no one tells them what to do with these urges, only that kissing and touching will set off a boy and they can't do that, no, that would be so very wrong, wouldn't it?
But Piper is afraid to nod her head in agreement, afraid that every place that Alex has caressed will stand out like the red of a stop sign, afraid that her knowledge of how it feels – that turning and twisting of the gut, that ache that only has one remedy, the blushing and blissful relief that comes when Alex moves inside of her – is branded upon her face for anyone and everyone to see.
"I guess so, I don't know..." Piper mumbles and Polly fixes her with an almost serious stare.
"Piper Chapman, have you and Larry done it?"
Piper shakes her head 'no', eyes wide, but Polly is like a dog with a bone and she doesn't believe Piper at all as she grins and hops around excitedly, fluttering with questions and innuendos, and Piper thinks of Alex - of being so in love with the girl that it hurts, of having to bury this happiness that she has found, of a terrible guilt warring with a terrible need whenever their bodies come into contact – and it's enough to drive a person mad...
...or, at the very least, to drive them to lie even more than they were before.
"You can't tell anyone, okay? No one, ever, okay?"
Polly's smile is blinding and Piper does her best to ignore the way her own heart sinks like a stone.
/ /
Remember this, that's what Piper tells herself as January melts into February and they are walking hand-in-hand in the chilly night and there are stray snowflakes lining the strands of Alex's hair, remember this for the rest of your life.
And the girl looks over at her, tender with so much affection, and Piper's chest feels too tight at the sight of her.
Remember this, remember this, remember this.
/ /
It's Danny that stumbles upon them – Alex's hand comfortably on Piper's hip as they softly kiss, reckless and stupid by the side of her father's shed – and Piper doesn't know what to do, frozen with the look in her brother's eyes, shock dissolving into disgust, and when he turns away – walking fast, boots stomping towards the house – Piper pushes Alex back and takes off after him.
"Danny... Danny, please stop..."
The screen-door slaps hard in his wake and Piper has never been more thankful that no one else is around this evening, her parents dressed up nice and down at the Thompson place while Cal is off playing at being an eagle scout, but the fact that it is just she and Danny in this kitchen does not abate her nerves one bit.
"What the hell are you two doin' out there? Huh, Piper, what the hell was that?"
And the tears are already forming, scalding as they slip from her eyes and down her cheeks, and she can feel the panic bubbling up in her throat, can feel the fear numbing her arms and legs, and Danny is waiting for something to make all of this go away - to prove to him that his little sister is not somehow made of sin, not somehow made wrong while the rest of them are made right – and Piper knows of only one way to save herself.
"It's nothing, Danny, I swear it, it's... it's just practicing, you know, it's a lark... I mean, I've got a beau, I've got Larry and I just... I just want to be good for him, that's all, that's all that is going on... it's nothing, it's nothing..."
She is crying even more now, shaking under Danny's stare, shaking under the weight of what she is about to let go of, crying harder and harder and she can barely see two feet in front of her as Danny blinks and looks down to the floor that they are both standing on, silent and considering and holding Piper's future in his hands.
"You can't be like that, Piper, you just can't..."
Piper nods her head up and down, ready to beg, ready to do whatever she has to for this to be forgotten, for this to be locked away and never spoken of again, and she wipes at her eyes as she tries to control her breathing, as she tries to tell her heart to keep quiet with its useless breaking.
"I'm not, I'm not like that, it's nothing... it's nothing at all, I promise..."
Danny clears his throat, eyes still averted, and his voice is so much like her father's in this moment – deeply-set and brooking no arguments.
"You stay away from that girl and I won't say a damn thing."
And Piper watches as everything lovely disappears from her grasp.
"...I'll stay away from her, Danny, I swear that I will..."
/ /
The last time she sees Alex, like really sees the girl, is days after Piper made her promises to a brother who wants to only save her from future pain – restroom walls echoing with chatter, the two of them hovering around the sinks and mirrors while other girls touch up their make-up – and once everyone starts to shuffle away, Piper tells herself that she should go with them, she should walk out of here right now and not look back.
Piper's eyes are full of betrayal, though, and they follow the lines of Alex's face - desperate and searching looks that go against everything she swore to do - and Piper never thought that anything could hurt this much, that she could ever feel this miserable, but when Alex finally meets her gaze...
...that's when Piper figures out that this agony is just beginning.
"Are you okay?"
But Alex already knows the answer, Piper can tell by the tone of the girl's voice, Alex already knows that they've lost something precious, that there is no turning back the clocks so they can be together again.
"I... I don't know... Alex, I am so, so sorry..."
Alex smiles but it is a broken sort-of thing, not at all as it should be, and Piper feels like she is shattering into pieces and she wants to stop this; she wants to pull Alex into her arms and she wants to kiss Alex all over and she wants no one to care that it is a girl that she has fallen for, she wants the world to change so that they don't have to, so that they can just be with each other.
"Yeah... me, too, Piper..."
And just like that, Alex is moving past her and they don't talk anymore, not for the rest of the year and not ever again.
/ /
Piper tells him that she is teary-eyed because it's her first time and he kisses her like she is fragile, like she is special, but Larry doesn't know a damn thing about this girl beneath him.
He doesn't know about her dreams, about her regrets; he doesn't really know her at all and that's just how Piper wants it to be.
And she creeps up the stairs, her parents asleep and Cal snoring down the hall and Danny's room empty now that he has joined up with the Army, and she sits on her bed – still in her pretty blue dress, still smelling of Larry's cologne – and she thought that she would get over it, she thought it wouldn't mean as much to her these days, she thought that with time it wouldn't still smart to think of a girl long gone, that it wouldn't still cut her to the quick to look around this town and not find that girl's face looking back.
Piper thought she would have forgotten about Alex Vause by now.
/ /
...but Piper has thought a lot of things over the years and none of them really matter anymore, do they?
/ /
(end)