When she had finally found the strength to pull herself together again, she forced herself down the wooden steps to the schoolfloors.

She hated them, even when they were empty and she didn't have to dread what was behind the next corner. But the lockers, the dirty floor tiles were all part of her daily trauma that was weighing down on her every minute of every day.

She passed the first row of lockers when she heard a voice, a familiar one.

There weren't many people she would have accepted seeing her like this, like Polly or Alex, but Alex was at work and Pol was miles away. Piper considered running back to the prop room, hiding for a few more hours until she was really alone in the building, but it was too late already, the voice turned the corner and stood right in front of her, eyes wide.

Larry pushed the red button of his phone and his smile grew wide when he saw Piper standing in front of him. Piper tried really hard not to look at him, not to let him see her puffy, red eyes.

„Piper?" The joy in his voice made Piper wince internally, she kind of felt sorry for the boy, who was so obviously in love with her, while she had sex in the dark with a girl who left her afterwards. Would he have left? Or would he have stayed, held her in his arms?

She erased those thoughts from her brain as fast as possible, but it was too late, she had thought them already and it felt like she was cheating on Alex.

„What are you doing here?" Piper couldn't stand staring on the floor anymore, she looked up, meeting his brown eyes, they were so different from Alex's. And again there she was comparing two people to one another.

„Oh my god, Piper. What happened, are you okay?" Larry's eyes grew wide in shock and compassion and all Piper wanted was someone to hug her, even if it was Larry and Larry did exactly that. It was like he was reading her mind.

He wrapped his arms around her. „Is that ok?" he whispered, being the nice guy he was.

Piper nodded, she fitted perfectly in his arms and when she burried her face in the space between his neck and his shoulder, she could smell his clean, soothing scent.

She wished it was Alex who held her right now.

Alex! She pulled back from Larry's hug, this was wrong, and it was wrong how right it felt.

„Do you wanna talk about it?" Larry asked, his eyes full of worry and compassion.

„My parents are getting a divorce." Normally she was noone who spilled her private life so fastly, but she felt weirdly comfortable around him.

Also this was only part of the reason why she felt devastated and lost and alone. The truth was, she felt guilty, like she was the reason why her parents were splitting up. They had been fighting all night, fighted with each other, fighted with her and had finally made the decision to end it and her father had moved out in that same night.

She really didn't know why she was telling Larry this, but somehow she felt like telling him would make her feel better, would make her feel less lonely.

„I'm sorry Piper." He said and she really believed him, his trustworthy eyes.

„But you know that it's not your fault, right?"

Did he really just say that? Has she said anything about her feeling guilty or was it just written on her forehead. Well, Alex hadn't been able to read it.

When Larry saw her shocked face, he hurried to explain.

„I mean, children tend to think it's their fault all the time. My parents thought about getting a divorce once and I thought it was because of me. But truth is, it's their fault, it's their choice. Nothing we could do could split up our parents if they were really happy with each other. And nothing we could do could hold them together when nothing else is. I'm sorry, I'm talking too much, but..."

He kept talking a little bit longer, saying all the right things about guilt and pain, making her feel awful because, again, she just wished it had been Alex who had said all these right things, that she had needed to hear so badly.

„I'm sorry, but I have to go home. I have to be there for my mum now, you know." Piper stated plainly, she was way too exhausted to have any emotions anymore, she just felt empty and sucked dry. She could have fallen asleep right there in the schoolhalls, her body feeling heavy and aching.

„Yeah, of course. But, Can I drive you home?" He didn't look at her while asking that, his eyes pinned shyly on his shoes. For a second Piper wanted to say no, because she was with Alex and because she didn't want to give him a false impression, didn't want to build up his hope, but then she decided otherwise. She was so tired that she might have fallen asleep in the car and so she just nodded.

His face lit up and he beamed at her overly happy causing her to nearly change her mind again. She felt bad for using him while she hadn't thought about him in days, she actually hadn't thought about him since he last texted her and now she was letting him drive her home.

But her body was too weak to say no to his offer, the tiredness overwhelming her and she actually fell asleep the second she sat on the passenger seat of his car.

„Piper?" He woke her up softly and the watch on her wrist, that she had put on before leaving the prop room, showed her that he had been driving way slower than she normally did. Maybe he was just a slow driver or maybe he wanted to make sure that she felt safe, she didn't know if she wanted that last thought to be true.

„Sorry." She whispered, ashamed that she had fallen asleep, when he had volunteered to drive her home, probably to spend a little more time with her.

„Sorry? What for?"

„Falling asleep."

His smile was so soft and warming that Piper had to smile back, never before had she met anyone so purely nice, he never seemed to have any ulterior motives and he never got mad, even though Piper treated him more like something nonexistant than like the nice guy he was.

„Don't worry, you probably needed that sleep. I'm actually glad that I could help you a little."

Piper couldn't believe how he could be so nice to her. Noone was ever this nice.

She thanked him for driving her home and was about to exit the car already when a thought crossed her mind. She dind't think it through before her mouth started talking.

„Maybe you could pick me up before school tomorrow and I could pay you breakfast somewhere, as a thank you?" She wanted to slap herself as she was saying this, what was she thinking?

Larry looked as if she had asked him to marry her, but then he tried to play it cool.

„Yeah, why not. I mean your car is still on the parking spot of school, so you need a drive anyways I guess." He wasn't pissed when he was saying this because he knew that wasn't the reason Piper had asked him. After all he didn't know that Piper was in a relationship, nobody knew, aside from Polly.

Piper waved him goodbye and watched his car drive off, standing on the porch long after the grey car paint had disappeared behind a corner.

Was this a date?

Her first impulse was to text Alex, tell her that Larry had driven her home, tell her about their breakfast'date' the next morning. She just wanted to hear that it was okay because it didn't mean anything and because Alex trusted her. But she couldn't bring herself to it because deep down she knew Alex wouldn't like it at all.

She walked inside the house, the house that contained her broke family, where two members were missing and wouldn't come back again.

"Mum, I'm home!" she yelled through the closed kitchen door, hoping that her mother wasn't at home, but of course she was. She always was. Since her break down in the middle of the night she had been signed off work. 'To cure her high blood pressure problems, from all the stress at work'

"Come here." She walked into the kitchen were her mother was sitting at the kitchen counter, an open bottle of white wine in front of her and the glass still in her hand.

"Sit down and eat something." her mother said, no hi, no how are you, no how was school. On the table was a full plate of pasta and Piper was feeling sick just seeing it, she was hungry and she knew the food would make her feel better, but just for a short time before she would start hating herself. Not eating was safer.

"Where is Cal?" she asked, ignoring the plate.

"At Tommy's." Carol took the next sip from the whine glass, not even trying to hide her drinking from her daughter anymore and Piper was getting more and more hopeless with her mother. She sent Cal away, again and Piper started missing her little brother, she was so caught up in her own shit that she had been neglecting him too much these past days and she promised herself to change that.

"Now sit down and eat." Carol wasn't drunk enough to forget the new 'healthrules' in the house, yet. But Piper was fed up, fed up with everything.

"I'm not hungry." her voice was extremly close to yelling, the anger ringing through her words.

"I don't care if you think you're hungry Piper, start eating!"

That was the last thing Piper needed to blow her lid. "You know what, mum, maybe I start eating when you stop drinking!" she screamed, shocked by her own voice as it rang through the whole house. But instead of apologizing immediately like the old Piper would have done, she rushed out of the kitchen, kicking the door shut behind her.

She expected her mother to follow her, yell at her, force her to eat. But 10 minutes later she was still sitting alone in her room. Maybe her Mother was more drunk already than Piper had thought. And the more she thought about it the more she felt being in the right. She had stood up against her mother, had finally told her what she was thinking and nothing had happened to her. That gave her such a boost that she was sure she was able now to confront her girlfriend. Well, tomorrow, in person, of course.

She used the sudden, unexpected boost to complete her homework, and she even managed to work through the stuff from her missing day before Cal came home from his friend.

She hadn't seen her mother since her yelling and she thought it was probably for the better, and it was also for the better when Cal didn't have to see his drunk mother. So she decided to keep the promise she had made and spend more time with her brother again.

His little smile was like a cure to her sadness and after she had watched him playing in the bathtub after she had helped him brush his teeth and after she had read him 4 whole bedtime stories, she almost felt happy again.

Watching him fall asleep was reminding her of how tired she was and she would have loved to cuddle up with him and sleep right there in his dragon sheeted bed. But there was something she needed to do, and so she kissed him on the top of his head, taking in his therapeutic scent before leaving his room.

After she had showered herself and lay down in her bed, she stared at the ceiling. It was almost dark in her room, only the moon brightening the white wall next to her bed a little.

She had had her first time today, had been closer to Alex than she had been to anyone before. And still, instead of feeling happy and overwhelmed by her feelings, all she felt was sadness and lonelyness. And she felt empty.

She wanted to have this feeling back, when everything else was background and there were only she and Alex, their naked bodies, close to each other. It had felt like nothing bad was existing in this world.

Earlier she had felt Alex's fingers inside of her, even after Alex had already been gone and she wanted to feel them again. That was why she had decided not to sleep in Cal's bed, because she really needed that feeling back. She kept staring on the ceiling, completely focused on the spot between her legs. She thought that if she tried to remember hard enough, she could feel Alex again. Could feel less empty again.

But she didn't feel it. She tried to contract her pelvic floor, but it didn't change anything.

So she decided to do the only thing that seemed logical in this situation but when she lay there alone on her bed in the dark with her hand between her legs, she felt nothing but dead on the inside. And then she cried herself to sleep.

I am so sorry that I've taken so long, I've been really busy with exams and my internship the past weeks :(

There will be more Vauseman in the next Chapter, promise :)

I know you hate Larry, but I actually think he's kinda cute in here and he is important for the plot. So sorry Larry-haters but I'll try to make up for it ;)

And of course I'm always happy to read a few reviews, so tell me what you liked and what you hated (besides Larry ;))
XXX