The next days went by in a steady rhythm.

Home was a burning hell, burning off her skin until her nerves were blank, sending pain through her body in shocks at the slightest impacts.

When her parents weren't gone working, they were both at home, yelling at each other or at her, accusations were floating through the air like an ugly smell. For so long Piper had dreamed of her parents being more at home, both of them, now that her dream had come true, it became apparent that in realitiy it was a nightmare.

Her parents had started to force her to eat three times a day, sitting down with her at the table, watching every single bite she took and swallowed, not letting her off the hook until her plate was empty and she was feeling disgusting.

Afterwards they locked all bathrooms for hours to prevent her from vomiting again, and they didn't give in, not even when she just had to pee, they stayed hard even when she cried, screamed or broke down. Not even Danny had been able to stop them from doing this. Even though he had tried.

Piper felt like she had lost control over herself, lost control over her body, over her life. She felt disgusting.

It caused her to run even longer hours in the morning, pushing her body even harder to get rid of the calories and the pain. But it wouldn't take long until her parents would start to control her running, too, she assumed.

School had become a weird confusing place. A heavenly hell. A hellish heaven.

All morning it was an inferno, scorching her blank, exposed nerves.

Whenever she met Alex, in the halls, in the classroom, she wanted to smile, wanted to hug her, wanted to kiss her, wanted to feel what she felt when they were alone.

But Alex had mastered the art of pretending not to see her, not to know her. Her cold shoulder was flash freezing Piper's blood.

Piper knew why Alex was doing this. She wanted to protect her and probably also protect herself. That was why she pretended not to like her, pretending like she didn't remember all the smootching between them every afternoon in the prop room.

It was acting, she acted to have no feelings whatsoever for Piper, the problem was, she was good at it. Very good. She was so convincing that everyone was buying it, even Piper.

And it was weighing down on her more and more.

How could this be so easy for Alex?

Piper wanted to be mad, actually she was mad at Alex all morning, was ragingly disappointed and furious and every day she made the decision that today she would tell Alex, tell her how much she suffered from her asshole behaviour when people were around. Give her the choice whether to acknowlegde their relationship, even in front of her sister, or to break up with her.

But as soon as the door fell close and they were standing alone in the prop room, the dull light shining on Alex's emerald eyes and as soon as she felt Alex's lips on her's, felt her hands in her neck or on her hips, all she wanted was to be as close to Alex as possible.

Wanted to feel her body lying on top of her, wanted to see her devouring her with her eyes.

And so she pushed all the negative thoughts and feelings to the back of her head and enjoyed being with Alex.

Not just making out with her, but also their talks, or just sitting next to her watching her reading one of her million books. Being with Alex was like the cure to sadness. As long as they were alone and as long as Piper avoided talking about Alex's sister.

Apart from that topic, and Piper's disease, a thing she still hadn't told her girlfriend (and yes, she still couldn't believe that Alex was really her girlfriend now, at least when they were alone), they could talk about anything. They talked about their dreams and fears, about books and believes, about their childhood, and Piper even told Alex about Rory. Being alone with Alex was like being at home, well the ideal idea of home, not her home.

Feeling Alex's presence was like somebody had turned on a light in Piper's heart.

But every afternoon, as soon as Alex left her sitting alone on the couch, the dying light inside of her was like a physical pain. And so was it today.

It was nearly two weeks after her accident and the scratches and bruises, that brought her a fair amount of insultings, abusive remarks and stupid comments from Nichols and the rest, were almost healed. But the cuts inside of her were gaping wider from day to day.

She didn't want to go home. Didn't want to see her parents, didn't want to eat.

So instead of calling her mother to tell her she was finished tutoring before driving home with her borrowed car, of course she still didn't have the bravey to drive her Mustang to school until her Escape was repaired, she shut off her phone.

Sitting in the car with her phone off, no connection cables attached to her, she felt free for the first time in weeks. The street was a familiar constant, something she could hold on to, driving was the one thing that gave her the feeling of being in control.

And so she drove, drove past the exit to her neighborhood and drove on until she reached the white big house with the red dor where she knew she would find comfort.

„Pipes?!" Polly opened the door only seconds after Piper had knocked and seeing her face was making her feel better already.

Polly knew her so well that one look in her eyes was enough to shut her up and pull her best friend into a hug.

„Come in." She said, taking Piper's hand to lead her to her room. Polly's house wasn't as big as the Chapman's but Piper loved it, it was less sterile, less perfect, more home.

She let herself fall onto Polly's bed, a bed she had been sleeping in when she hadn't been older than five, the bed had stood in another room in another house back then, but it still smelled like Polly, the same smell like back when they were kids.

„What's wrong? Is it your girlfriend again?" Of course Piper had told her about Alex the same day they had become a couple. Other than the bulimia fact which she had kept from Polly, Alex and the whole school situation had been a topic of their daily text conversations and phone calls.

„What did she do?" Polly wasn't a big fan of Alex, even if she hadn't met her in person, everything she knew about her was enough to dislike her already. She sat down on the bed, facing Piper, she took her hand, like she always did to comfort her.

Piper sighed, one part of her, the one that was deeply in love with Alex and hated that Polly didn't like her, didn't want to add fuel to the flames, but the other one, the one that was hurt and mad at Alex, needed to get it out of her system so badly that it won the fight pretty fastly.

„Well there is this rumor in school. Somebody seemed to have seen me writing a text that said I miss you. Of course it was for Alex, but I have changed her name to an X in my phone, because I am not that dumb, you see. Well and now Nichols is spreading the rumor that I'm having an affair with my psychology teacher, which is ridiculous because he is at least a hundred years old and everybody knows that it's a lie. But that didn't keep them from laughing and talking about it all day."

Polly was shaking her head, it wasn't that much of a surprising story, spreading dumb rumors and making everbody laugh about them was one of Nichols' favourite activities.

„How mature." she sighed, stroking Piper's cheek with the back of her hand.

„Well, not that it's something new that Nichols likes to torture me. But Alex, who exactly knows that this message was for her, because she got it and she even answered to it, telling me how she missed me too, she just sat there next to them, listening to all their dumb and insulting bullshit, and she said nothing. She just sat there and didn't even look at me."

The more Piper told about it, the angrier she got. She didn't even give Polly the chance to answer, working herself up into her rant.

„And I mean of course I don't expect her to fucking tell everybody that the text was for her. I never demanded anything like that from her. But she could at least have told her sister to shut up, or tell them that it's not funny and that they are risking Healy's job with defamations like that. But she said fucking nothing, even afterwards, when we met in the prop room she just pretended like nothing did happen. No sorry, no are you ok. Nothing. Can you even believe her?"

She had talked herself into her rant, nearly forgetting to breathe in between. Polly was staring at the matress between them, still holding Piper's hand and Piper knew Polly as good as Polly knew her.

„OK, I know what you want to say. That I knew what I was getting into before I got involved with her and that it was predestined to be that way and that I can't blame her ..."

„No." Polly interrupted her, now looking up in her eyes.

„No?" Piper had been so caught up in her own rage that she hadn't really expected Polly to say anything, instead she was projecting her own selfdoubts and fears onto her best friend.

Polly took Piper's other hand, too.

„No, what I was about to say was... well, maybe you should start demanding things from her. I mean you're her girlfriend, right? Tell her to finally acknowledge that, tell her to tell her sister. You have every right to ask for this, how long does she want to play this game, you can't take this shit from her forever."

Tears had started to roll down Piper's face, because Polly was speaking out loud what Piper had felt and dreaded for days already. She knew she had to stand up against Alex, but she couldn't. She couldn't make her choose between her sister and her because she knew what her decision would be.

„But I can't make her choose between her sister and me." Piper whined, wiping the tears off her face, angrily that they were even there.

„Nobody says you should ask her to choose. She just has to tell her sister and tell her to back off. Then this Nichols bitch has to choose how much her sister means to her, right?"

Polly was standing up from the bed, getting Piper a tissue from the drawer of her nightstand.

When Piper made no effort to clean her face from the runny mascara, she took the tissue out of her hand again, wiping away her best friend's tears, while Piper was just staring into the nothing.

„What are you thinking?"

„What should I do if she just says no?" new tears were running down her face and Polly gave up wiping them away eventually, sitting down on the bed again.

„If she really wants to be with you she has to make a decision, if not... well, then you have to make one. For the both of you."
„You mean leaving her, don't you?" Piper whispered, although she already knew the answer before Polly nodded.

„I can't. I think I love her." And with that said, she broke down, crying into her best friend's arms.

When Piper decided it was time to go home it was dark outside already and she hadn't been available to anyone in hours, not to her parents, not to her girlfriend, who texted her every evening, and at this point she thought it was probably the best thing to keep her phone shut off.

Her parents just wanted to keep the control over her and Alex really deserved waiting for her a little.

Had she known how angry her parents were, she would have probably decided otherwise and just have stayed at Polly's instead of going home.

She could hear the yelling before she even got into the hallway. And her first impulse was to turn her heel and run, but she knew that was not an option.

So she took in a deep breath before putting her key into the lock and turning it around to enter hell.

„HOW CAN YOU LET YOUR DAUGHTER WANDER AROUND WITHOUT AN IDEA WHERE SHE MIGHT BE? HAS IT ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THIS WHEN I HAVEN'T BEEN HERE?" her father's voice was sounding through the whole house, even through the closed kitchen door.

On the stairs in the hallway was her little brother, sitting in his pyjamas with his dragon in his arms and wide, teary eyes.

Piper kneeled down in front of him while her mother was yelling how everything was his fault, blaming him for never being home in the background.

Piper took Cal's cold bare little feet in her hands.

„Hey babyboy, you can't sleep with all this yelling, huh?"

Cal wrapped his short arms around Alfred, shaking his head slowly.

He looked so lost and scared, sitting there in this huge hallway he seemed even smaller than he was.

„Cal, everything is gonna be alright, I promise." she said, although she didn't really know if anything was ever getting better. She pecked him a kiss on his forehead, taking in his baby scent, to calm him and to calm herself.

„Go to your room, munchkin, put on some good night story on your cd player, ok? I'll come check on you later. The screaming will be over soon, promise." she whispered to him before watching him toddle up the stairs.

She watched him leave until the door closed behind him. She really wished she could spare him this pain, she wanted him to have a happier childhood than he had lately. At least he was aloud to see friends every afternoon, because their parents were doing everything to get him out of the house. If that was to spare him the drama or to get rid of another problem, Piper had really no idea but she really hoped the first.

Her parents hadn't stopped yelling at each other in the meantime, their accusations getting dirtier and more offensive from day to day.

Her mom's drinking and her dad 'screwing bitches' how her mother called it, were just two of the daily topics. Piper's disease and who has failed more at parenting had become as big a topic as their failed marriage and Piper was feeling the weight of guilt.

And now her being missing all afternoon was fueling the fights even more. Although she didn't really understand why nobody had the idea to just do the obvious and call Polly to ask her if she knew where Piper was.

She knew it was time to intervene, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do right now. So she took a last breath before she entered the living room of hell.

So finishing a chapter in the middle of the night seems to be my new hobby now ;)
I really hope you enjoyed this chapter, even though there wasn't very much Vauseman. Please tell me what you think.

Thanks my lovelies for still reading and reviewing and supporting me. It means the world to me XXX