Piper woke up in the middle of the night and it took her a few seconds to locate the fuss that had ripped her out of her sleep.
She panicked, thinking maybe Cal had fallen down the stairs and her heart was beating in her throat all of a sudden. She hurried to her door, ripping it open, already horrified of what she might find behind that door.
Cal's bedroom door was closed, a fact that let her have hope that he was still asleep in his bed.
When Piper took the stairs, she saw a body lying on the black marble floor of the hall. Who ever it was, hadn't turned on the light and Piper nearly fell down the stairs in the dark, she could clutch to the railing last second, a pain shooting through her hand where Alex had ripped out the woodsplinter hours ago.
Piper pulled herself up again, rubbing the small of her back where she had hit the step. Jumping down the last few steps, she recognized her mother in the motionless body on the floor.
"Mum?" she let herself fall on her knees "MUM?"
But Carol didn't answer and for a second Piper was sure she was dead, a tear dropped from her face onto her mother's cheek.
"Mummy?" Piper hadn't called her mother like that for at least 10 years. She tilted her head and tried to hear her mother breathing, laying her head on top of her chest.
It took a little time, that felt like hours, because Piper's heartbeat was so loud that she was deaf to everything else. But then she felt her mother's chest moving and was finally able to differentiate Carol's heartbeat from her own.
"Mum!" she grabbed Carol's shoulders and shook her "Fuck!" Piper yelled "Mum please!"
„MUUUUM!" she heard her mother gagging and turned the body to the side so her mother wouldn't choke on her own vomit as she regurgitated her stomach contents, that consisted mainly of wine.
The acrid smell of gastric acid reached her nostrils, but she was used to the smell and sight of puke from her own digestive juices.
„Piper?" the high voice of her little brother rang through the hallway and Piper could see his naked feet at the head of the stairs, illuminated by the dull moonlight that shined through the alabaster glass of the front door.
„Cal go back to bed!" Piper hissed through her teeth, still trying to hold her mother's head to prevent her from aspirating her vomit.
„Piper? What are you doing?" his little feet toddled down the stairs step by step, while his hand clinged to the railing.
„CAL, GO TO YOUR FUCKING BED!" Piper yelled at her little brother, who immediately started crying.
„Come Caly." It was Polly who took Cal's hand and led him back to his room, Piper had almost forgotten that Polly was sleeping in her room and had probably been woken up by her screaming, but right now she was so grateful for her best friend while at the same time she was embarrassed that someone had seen her mother in this state.
„Mum?" Piper whined, tears running down her face „Mum, what shall I do? What can I do, mum?"
Piper was desperate, she couldn't cope with this situation, all she wanted was to run and hide. But you can't hide from your own skin.
„We gotta put her into the shower." Polly's voice sounded like coming from a distance, like reality knocking at the door of her nightmare.
She barely realized how they carried Carol up the stairs, each of them on one side of her, her arms over their shoulders they dragged her into Piper's bathroom, that was the nearest.
It was Polly who turned on the water to wash the vomit from Carol's body, while the woman kept fainting. It was also Polly who called the ambulance, while Piper was sitting on the bathroom floor, her mother's vomit on her, although she hadn' even realized that her mothe had actually puked on her on their way up to first floor.
Piper had no idea where her father was, she hadn't seen him in days, and she hated him so much right now, for not being here for her mother, for not being here for her and Cal. In this second it was all his fault and she was glad she had someone to blame, someone else than her drunken mother.
The ambulance came and took her mother to the hospital and she had to stay home with Cal, but that was probably for the better, she didn't want to be there when her mother sobered up, she was afraid of what she might do to her when she had the chance.
Polly helped her getting out of her clothes and into the shower and then left her alone to look after Cal.
The hot water ran down her skinny body, washing off the numb feeling inside her chest, all that remained in her cramping heart was a deep burning sadness and a huge amount of anger.
She finished showering, swallowing down her sadness, right now she needed to be angry.
Sitting on her bed, wrapped in a towel she hit the buttons on her cellphone, her fingers nearly destroying the phone from anger.
It was three o' clock in the morning and she should probably wait until the morning, until her anger calmed down, but she needed a valve for her emotions.
„Piper? Do you know what time it is?" her father's voice sounded sleepy on his cellphone but Piper didn't even care, he was an asshole and it was all his fault.
„Fuck you, dad! I know what time it is, it is too fucking late for you to make things good!"
„Piper Chapman, how are you talking to me, is that how I brought you up?"
„You just fuck up everything! Where the hell are you even?" Piper was yelling at her father through her phone, all her desperation and hate exploding in that single moment.
„It is your fault! It is all your fault for fuck's sake. You know what? Don't come back, ever!"
She hit the red button on her phone, she had totally forgotten why she had wanted to call her father, what she had expected, but she actually felt a little bit better now that she had passed her anger to her father.
Just then she realized Polly standing in her doorframe.
„You ok, Pipes?"
Piper shook her head, she was far away from ok, she never felt so left alone from her parents. They hadn't really been there for her the past few years, but this was a new level of loneliness, it was a hole inside her that neither Polly nor Cal could fix.
She pressed the red button on her phone, when her dad tried to ring her and started typing a message into her phone.
To: Alex
Hey Alex, I'm sorry I'm not coming to school tomorrow.
See you on Monday. -P
She knew it was in the middle of the night and Alex was probably asleep already, but she couldn't stop looking on the screen all four seconds while Polly helped her getting back to bed.
She hoped for an answer, an answer that would make everything allright, that would make her feel less lonely, less hopeless.
She had no idea how this text should look like, she just wanted Alex to care.
But all her screen was showing were the multiple times her dad tried to reach her.
Should he find out himself what had happened.
She shut her phone off, before falling into a unsteady sleep.
When she woke up, Polly was already gone and instead of her, Cal was lying next to her.
She saw on her clockface that she had only slept three hours since she had gone back to bed.
„I'm so sorry, babyboy." She pecked the blonde boy on the top of his head before she stood up from her bed, she felt so bad for yelling at him last night.
She left her bathroom door open a bit so that she could keep an eye, or rather an ear, on her still asleep brother, while she took off her clothes and stepped into the shower, although it had been barely 4 hours since her last one.
The water ran down her body and she shut her eyes close, looking at the back of her eyelids, where a permanent image of Alex had been printed on ever since the day before.
She let herself drown in her memories, nearly felt Alex's touch on her hips again.
The picture of herself laying on top of Alex on the staircase flashed in her mind and she let herself sink into it. She imagined lowering her head towards the pretty face under her, she imagined brushing those lips with her own, she nearly felt it, felt Alex's lips on her's, felt her tongue in her mouth and her hands wandering from her hips, touching her everywhere.
She restrained herself from letting her own hands wander, not wanting to touch herself while her brother could walk in any second. But it took her a lot to pull herself together.
The pictures in her head were so real, she literally felt Alex touch her breasts and kiss her lips and for a second she thought she even heard her voice, which was ridiculous, since she was standing in her shower at home and Alex was probably in school already.
It was really going south with her.
„Piper?" Alex's voice sounded like coming from the hallway and Piper started to question her mind; being in love was one thing, fantasising about her was another, but hallucinating about her was a whole new level.
She turned off the water and turned towards the door to hear if Cal was up already.
And to her shock, he was.
She had experienced a lot of embarassing, uncomfortable and horrifying things in her life but when she turned around and saw Alex standing in her bathroom, next to a ruffled, sleepy Cal, she just wanted to die.
„Piper, there is someone who wants to see you!" Cal smiled over the whole face, proud that he had answered the door all by himself. Piper was close to killing the little boy and her face must've showed, cause Cal looked at her eyes for a second and turned around immediately and toddled off.
„I'm sorry!" Alex stated, seemingly aware of the awfully inappropriate situation, but instead of leaving, she kept staring at Piper.
Piper was too shocked to even think of looking for clothes, she just stood there naked, her head red as a tomato she was one hundred percent sure that Alex could read in her face that she had just been wet dreaming about her.
She barely noticed that Alex wasn't even looking at her face to read anything in there, she was too focused on the rest of her body, not even trying to hide her stare.
It felt like hours until Piper finally got the idea to cover herself with her towel and she surmised a little disappointed look on Alex's face, when she wrapped the towel around her naked body.
„I'm sorry." Alex repeated, not really convincingly, sice her eyes were still pinned on Piper's breasts. Only 5 minutes earlier Piper had dreamed about Alex looking at her this way, now she felt vulnerable and denounced.
When Alex finally looked at Piper's face she seemed to realize the awkwardness of the moment, she took her glasses off, wiping them on her shirt.
„I'll wait for you outside" she mumbled before leaving the bathroom with a last look on Piper's body.
When Alex closed the door behind her, Piper stood there thunderstruck. Had Alex really been staring at her? Could it be possible that maybe Alex was gay? Could she have a chance? But then she remembered the whole sister-thing and all her hopes crumbled like dry cement.
Out of habit Piper hadn't brought any clothes with her, she normally didn't need to get dressed in her bathroom and when she slipped through the door, Alex was sitting on her bed, now looking a bit uncomfortable too.
Piper avoided looking at her while she passed her to get her clothes from her drawer.
She could have just put them on right there, there wasn't anything that Alex hadn't seen, anymore, but she decided to go to the bathroom to get dressed.
She would have preferred staying there forever, stay there and wait for death. When she finally had the courage to leave the bathroom, Alex was still sitting on her bed.
Piper couldn't look her in the eye, she was way too embarrassed.
„Why are you here?"
So guys, what do you think about chapter 9?
I don't know what's wrong with this website but it doesn't show all of your comments anymore in the review section :( But don't worry I read all of them anyways, some of them a million times, cause they were sooooo nice :) You guys make me happy, even though this website is driving me nuts right now ;)
XXX