Trigger warning: Self Harm

AV

Maximum Security Prison

Piper Chapman

Litchfield Prison

Letter Five

Dear Piper,

I wish you had the same connection to Carol that I had with DIane. I know it's hard to picture because your mom is well... WASPy (like you), but also quite homophobic and a bit thick-headed.

Diane is exactly the opposite. In my last letter I revealed my coming out story. I mean really (after getting over the mortified expression that is inevitable when you realize your mother knows your porn history) you realize that despite knowing your not-so innocent video preferences and knowing you are a queer and knowing you are not so innocent in other ways she still loves you. She loves you unconditionally and still makes a point to spend time with you and joke around like old friends.

Do you know what we did that night, me and Diane? We went home and had a beer together. We talked for the entirety of the evening about girls (in my case) and boys in hers. That was the first night she ever told me about my dad. I mean really told me, not like the whole fantasy story she made up when I was seven. She told me where he went on tour, and who he was touring with. She told me that she thought it was true love back then, back when she was twenty-three and couldn't have a care in the world (see the parallels I'm drawing here Piper?).

She told me that they met when they were in college - or sort of in college. She was just staying around campus for the parties. She didn't have the cash for courses. He did. But he was a terrible student. He would pip off and get high - only off of weed back then. But maybe the whole gateway drug thing has its truths. Hardly. See my mom told me he was abusive sometimes. Sometimes my dad would come home high or drunk and he would punch her in the face. Sometimes he would kick her in the shins. Or later he would cut along her thighs because no one could see the scars there of course. When he woke up from his high he would mumble an apology. He would cry and get down on his knees and beg for forgiveness. My mom had too much heart to refuse so she forgave him. She said it would be the last time but it never was. To make it up to her my dad would play. He would play his music - not the music from his band but ever better real stuff. Stuff he wrote only for my mom and that he strummed gently on his guitar.

My mother fell for it every goddamn time. They ended up sleeping together. He wore a condom - always. That was the deal they made. Only this time for some reason the package was torn through. It was the last one in the box and it was better than nothing. Unfortunately it had a tear in the bottom. Piper I'll spare you the details (or do you like dicks?). My mom couldn't afford the morning after pill. She begged for my dad to give her the cash for it, but he refused. He stormed off and got high as a kite. He left with his band tour the next day and never even said goodbye. All that was left was an envelope with a note that said "You're the greatest fuck up I've ever had. Have a nice life".

My mom was in tears by this point. She chugged her beer in one go and looked down, deflated. She was ashamed. Of everything - that she couldn't afford college, that she ended up with some fuck up, that she fucked him and he fucked her and he got her fucking knocked up and fucking left for fucks sakes. After that her scent ended became incoherent. I carried my mom to her bed and closed the door and sighed as she fell asleep. I went to my own room. I tore up or tried to tear up a poster of my father's band. I couldn't do it. Even after the story he was still this enigma to me and I wanted to meet him in person.

But I was too scared. I was still only fourteen and I could never travel on my own. So I just cried myself to sleep and walked myself to school the next morning.

When I got home my mother was still in bad. She was awake but not happy. She hadn't eaten all day and I knew why. Her bank account was empty. I dipped into the money I got from some school prize and checked out two boxes of cereal from the corner store and a gallon of milk. It was all we could handle. I got out the bowls and poured us breakfast - supper - who gives a fuck at this point.

She never wanted to eat. I asked her why.

She told me because it was her in mourning. Wait did he die? I asked. No she said, she was mourning his image of perfection. She was mourning the loss of this image she had created in my mind for my sake as a child. She was mourning that she had started to believe that image too. But the truth had sunk in the moment she told me the real deal. She was upset about more than that though

She said "I'm unhappy Al, because this is the moment you lose your innocence". I reply snappily with my favourite Robertson Davies quotes "One learns one's mystery at the price of one's innocence". I thought she would like that, like that her daughter was growing up. She didn't. She hated it. She raged, banging her fists against the table until they bled and bruised. She was about to go for the wall when I stepped in front of it. I knew she would never lay hand on me. "What's wrong? What the fuck"

She just collapsed into tears again. She let herself sink to her knees, then sat slumped on the tile floor of our dingy apartment. She explains that along with the loss of my innocence is the loss of my naïveté about the world and how it functions. It's never fair and she wanted better for me. Goddamn how could she not have provided for her daughter - her bright and beautiful daughter who could quote poets from all over the world to go to get a real education. She knew about the cycles of poverty and how I was going to be caught right in that endless viscous circle of low pay 4 jobs struggling to get by.

I tell her "well at least with my gayness I won't get teen pregnant"

She tries to fight the grin, and it results in a half-twisted smirk. There's the Diane Vause I knew and loved. I gave her a hug, and I ran my fingers through her scratched up hair. I put my arms around me mother's shoulder and cradled her as she had done for me so many times. As she had done every single time I was bullied or taunted or teased. She looks up at me with tired eyes. She was trying to be strong but she didn't want to fight so hard. I didn't have anything to say so I just lay down my head on hers. We just sat there alone the two of us for hours. We would have fallen asleep there had it not been for the knock on the door.

When I opened it I expected - I had no expectations. Turns out it was Jessica Wedge and Jason Wedge. Jessica glared at me. Jason glared at me. They looked into our dingy place and laughed a terrible laugh before they pulled out their cell phones and snapped a picture of how depressed me and Diane looked then. They shared it with the world. I slammed the door in their face. I fought the tears so my mom wouldn't have to see them and comfort me. Too late, she knew me too well. She pulled my down into her arms and I wept.

I told her I needed space, needed to have a shower. I did. So I went in the shower and turned it on. I wanted it as loud and burning as it could be. Burning on my skin from the power of the jets not the heat. We couldn't afford warm water then. I took out my razor and took the blade out. I dragged it along my right wrist. I didn't even gasp or bothering looking down. I was so numbed back then I had no other care in the world. I had an actual shower and dried up and put on a hoodie. It was winter; no one would know the difference.

Diane knew. I have no idea how. She found out a week later, but she said she knew all along. She pulled me into a hug, and pulled up both my sleeves at once. She had my hands pinned up so I couldn't fight it. I thought she was going to cry but she didn't. She was calm and supportive. She told me I could still talk to her, that "even if I'm struggling I love how I can still help you out. That by sharing and being vulnerable it makes us more empathetic and more human". I never forget that quote. I still hold it dearly. So. Tell her how I like the pain that comes with the blood because it Dosn't fun as deep as the emotional scars that I have.

She tells me she struggled with this for years as a teenager. She tells me she got through it with counselling and lots of therapy. I told her there's no way we could pay for it all. She told me the school would arrange it. She had already called and they needed the final proof from her to sign me up. She told me so help her I would get better if it was the last thing she did. I went to those sessions weekly and cried on my mother's shoulder when the impulse was too much to bear. She held me tightly, and dearly.

When my mom died I told you I wanted to call her and talk about it. That's what I did all throughout my life. I also had the urge to cut myself again. I resisted that one. That battle had come and gone long ago. I wanted you Piper. Remember when I said you were the only other person who ever got through to my heart? Well then you fucking left too. And all I thought was "I am never getting out of this viscous cycle of poverty. I have all the money and power in the world but I am destined to be a fuckup and a failure". And so that's what I believed. I went to the funeral and there was fucking five people there. THey read some stupid script they probably downloaded illegally and it was so bullshit I could barely stop from punching out the goddamn priest.

Fahari drove by and picked me up. Offered to go back to Paris and party so hard I would forget. And it's what I wanted, I wanted it so badly. Not to forget DIane, but to forget YOU. Because you broke my FUCKING HEART and you were the only one in this whole world who even had it in the first place.

SO there it is Piper.

I tried for ten fucking years to forget you.

And yet here I am, lost between nightmares and daydreams.

Still waiting for you to turn around and come running back to Paris with me.

Not even going to bother to ask you to call me because I know you won't.

Alex

Notes:

Readers I apologize for the darkness of this part. Not all of them can be fluff, or sex, or love because the world is messy, especially the wold of Alex Vause and Piper Chapman. As one faithful reviewer has said "These two are SINFULLY angsty". True true which is why we love them nonetheless. Fear not, more will come (on a weekly basis of course) for these two inevitable twins. I'm trying to cover the most ground with flashbacks and musings from the complex character of Alex Vause's past. Suggestions are always welcome.

Reviewers, again you are freaking amazing. With every constructive criticism I get I improve and strive to integrate it with my next instalment. Positive reviews are also cool and I read every single one. I do reply to every review personally via PM.

Enjoy your weekend folks, and have fun!