Alex crossed the dark space that followed the short hallway behind the row of scrawled over lockers and Piper was 100% sure that she would head towards the door on the left wall that you could barely see cross the windowless hall. Alex was feeling her way along the wall until she reached that exact door Piper had thought about.
Alex opened the door for Piper and closed it behind herself again, they were now standing incredibly close to each other, because the space behind this door was pretty small, Piper could feel her heart beat in her chest and she was sure Alex must be able to feel it, too. She felt Alex feeling for the lightswitch at the wall she was standing in front of and her hand brushed Piper's arm, sending a new wave of elektroshock up her spine.
When the light flickered and the flashes were illuminating the two of them, Alex was already climbing across the one and a half metre tall board wall that was seperating them from the wooden stairs that led to the attic. The light finally decided to stay on and Piper followed Alex on the familiar path, she pulled herself up on the wall and swung her legs over it before jumping down again on the other side.
"It is some kind of safeplace" Alex said, hands in her pockets and shoulders pulled towards her ears, when they had reached the upper end of the long stairs that led from first floor right to the attic
"I often come here after school when I don't wanna go home" Alex let herself fall on the couch of the prop room, the same couch Piper had been sitting on only hours ago.
Piper felt like she couldn't breathe. Seeing her shelter being intruded by another person, especially a person who scared her to no end, made her knees weak and she couldn't believe that all this time while she had thought she had a safeplace it had only been a coincidence that she had never met her nemesis there.
All of a sudden she didn't feel safe anymore and she got a familiar urge to run.
"You ok?" Alex lay across the couch, her crossed legs hanging down from the one armrest and her ellbows pressed against the other. Piper had never realized how tall Alex was. But at the same time Alex looked kind of cute, swinging her legs to and fro and smiling at Piper like this. Her smile made Piper's knees only weaker.
"Hello?" Alex snapped her fingers a few times until Piper woke up off her frozen state.
"Ehm. What?" Piper asked, feeling dumb and embarrassed. "You got epilepsy or so?" Alex smirked at Piper's blushing face. Piper was ashamed being seen in her counfusion and it showed.
"Cute" Alex stated not stopping with that intriguing smirk.
Piper thought her face would melt from the heat of her blood, she got even redder, if that was possible. She sat down on the dusty chair that was facing her new student who still followed every move she made with her green eyes. Piper closed her blue one's for a second, trying to regain her composure again.
That was her student, they were here for tutoring and she would survive this. Though it wasn't only fear anymore that got her heart beating that fast, not that she would admit that.
"So with what should we start?" her voice sounded calmer than expected and that gave her the courage to open her eyes again. Alex who hadn't moved the slightest bit, shrugged her shoulders. The dim light playing with her dark hair like a glow in the dark. Piper averted her gaze.
"Ok ... Ehm ...What is your worst topic?" For a second Alex stared at her in confusion, then she bent her head backwards breaking out in a full hearted laughter that sounded just like her raspy voice and it took Piper aback for a second.
"What?"
"Better ask what's my best. We're sooner done with that!" Alex was still laughing and now also Piper had to grin.
"Then what's your best?"
"None!" Alex said, suddenly with a deadly serious tone, but still smirking. "Oh, don't act so shocked" she gazed playfully evil at her tutor when she saw her eyebrows scooping up. But on her lips still lay a layer of a smile.
"How about we start with history? We got a test next week, we could study for that" Piper suggested "What did you get on the last one?"
"An E -." Alex stated rather bored "You really wanna go to Harvard?" Her eyebrows were now contracted in doubt as if she could not imagine how somebody could possibly want to go to college. With that she got Piper by surprise.
"What?"
"Do you really wanna go to Harvard?" Alex repeated as if it was the most normal question on earth. Piper shook her head. "Why do you wanna know?"
But Alex just shrugged her shoulders again.
They were silent for a moment, each of them indulged in thought. A part of Piper wanted to talk to Alex jauntily, normally, like they had a chance of becoming friends but deep down there was the broken Piper that didn't trust anyone and talking about her dreams seemed like suicide to the broken Piper. Especially since she knew nothing about her opponent.
"Tell me something about you!" It cost Piper all her courage to ask her that, afraid that Alex might get angry for her answering with a counterquestion but Alex looked at her with penetrating eyes, as if she was trying to read her mind, to find out who that blonde girl with those blue eyes was.
Alex pulled her knees up from their dangling position and pressed her feet against the armrest instead, she lay on her back and now stared at the ceiling. Then she started talking in a monotonous voice as is she was reciting a grocery list.
"I'm Alex. I'm 17. I'm bad in school. I'm a smoker. What else?" she had been tapping her middle finger against her knee with every fact she had mentioned, now she was crossing her arms under her head, letting one of her extra long legs dangle from the couch again.
She was beautiful how she lay there and Piper was confused by her own mind. Why did she even care about the looks of that girl? She needed to distract herself. She pulled her knees under her chin and slung her arms around them like a shield, protecting her body.
"Tell me something I don't know" Piper tilted her head, placing her cheek on her knees „Anything!"
Alex head turned around and her smile was naughty. "You're cute" she smirked, watching Piper's face turn into a tomato again and started to laugh out loud.
"Real cute!" she said, referring to Piper's red face. The smirk on her face was now combined with her flirting eyes. „And you definitley don't know that!"
"Ha ha!" Piper's face was hot like a flat iron, but not only from embarrassement, she shockingly noticed that she also felt a little flattered, noone had ever called her cute.
"Should we start?" Piper tried to change the subject and bring it back to the reason why they were actually there. Alex looked a bit disappointed, her smile disapperaed for a second before beaming up again.
"Nope" she stood up from the brown couch and picked up her black backpack from the floor where she had carelessly left it earlier that afternoon. She swung it over her right shoulder, looking in Piper's confused and angry face.
Piper was starting to get pissed, first this girl wanted someone to teach her so badly and then she tried to chicken out, wasting her time. Putting her arms up in surrender, Alex smirked at her blonde tutor again.
"Hey, chill! We'll study for that stupid test!" she let her arms sink again, pushing her hands into her backpockets. "Just not today, ok? I gotta go. Working."
"What do you do? Sell drugs?"
Alex laughed "Yeah totally. For an international drug kartell!"
Piper wasn't quite sure if that was a joke but Alex's warm smile let her forget about that again. "Tomorrow? Same time, same place?" the tall darkhaired girl suggested and Piper nodded, returning the warm smile.
She watched Alex walk down the stairs and her heart jumped when the raven haired girl turned her head right before she was out of sight and those green eyes met her's. Then the door fell close and Piper sat there more confused than ever.
She had spent the last months hating this girl without knowing her she had wished alle Nichols' members pain and failure, had wished for them to disappear and now after a single hour she was actually looking forward to the next day, to see Alex again.
She tried to deny it. She tried to tell herself that the weird feeling in her stomach was the after effect of her talk with Larry that morning and she tried to focus on the feeling of holding his hand again, tried to remind herself of his touch, but her brain kept producing pictures of Alex's hand, and not only pictures. She could literally feel Alex's skin under her hands.
Piper stood up, something was really deeply disturbingly wrong with her. But she didn't want to think about that any further, she grabbed her bag and hurried down the stairs and climbed over the wooden wall. For a second she got scared that Alex might have locked her in, and in the second she grabbed the doorhandle she didn't knew what would be worse, spending the rest of the day locked in the prop room or the pain of this betrayal.
She pushed the handle down and opened the door.
When Piper parked her car in the garage, she didn't even bother to go in and say hi. She just took her key, opened her Mustang and slid into the driver's seat. The smooth, cool leather smelled like strength and power, like the whole interior of her car.
Whenever she sat in there, touching the wheel, the gear stick and turning her key in the original car from 1964, she didn't feel small anymore, she didn't feel meaningless. She revved the engine and considered opening the convertible hood for a second but then she decided against it, she just wanted to drive.
When she reached the highway, she shifted to the fith gear. The satisfying sound of the V8 engine rang in her ears and she didn't need to turn on the radio because it was music in her ears already. It was still an hour to rush hour and Piper decided to use that. When her car reached the top speed she felt the adrenalin kicking in.
The world around her got blurred, a mix of trees and cars. The only very clear things were she herself, her loved car and the street in front of her. She stayed in the left lane passing all the early after work drivers. Never were her senses so heightened as when she was driving and everything else got background, like a blinde who got more sensible to the sounds of the world around him.
She felt alive and free. She was someone else in that car, someone less vulnerable, someone less assailable. She became more of the person she wanted to be.
And finally seeing clear she could finally admit that she kind of liked Alex, and she liked to think there was nothing bad about that. Of course she knew she had to be careful and not trust anybody, but maybe, just maybe this studying thing could actually be a chance. When her mind had made the decision to be hopeful, it was already six and she headed home. Leaving the highway, she slowed down and her invincibility fell off her like a too big cloak.
But the spark of hope in her, that spark remained where it was.
So this is chapter 5 and we're getting to a little more Vauseman now. Yay :)
Please review, tell me what you think, tell me what you like and what you don't. Also tell me if you think I'm moving too fast!