Piper doesn't have to think of calling her brother the next time it happens. No, he calls her. She fumbles for her phone before she remembers to breathe, running to slam her door shut before accepting the call. Her roommates don't need to hear about what she talks about with her brother. Or her brother's real identities… or anything to do with him, actually. They know he exists, and that's enough for now.
She answers the call, still slouched at the foot of the draft under the door trying to stuff it with a towel to avoid someone hearing something they don't need to. It's only slightly embarrassing.
She's now doing undeniably better at hiding her brother's secrets (and her own, their past is a whole other can of worms) from her roommates. Whether the protocol be similar to that of a fire inside the dorm, she doesn't care.
She looks at her phone screen after promising herself the towel is stiffly stuck under the door, sitting against it on her fluffy carpeting. It's a good enough cushioning for now, then she'll move to her bed… after she cleans it.
"Y'ur not…" he slurs, eyes slightly unfocused as they squint at his phone screen. His hair's a mess, his eyes are only half-open and he honestly looks like he could pass out anytime he wants to.
"Wh-" he cuts himself off with a bout of coughing, setting his phone propped up at an angle where she can see just about see how disheveled he is. Clothes a mess, hair a mess, looking terrible and barely coherent. Piper doesn't have to ask if he's drunk or not. Looking closely, his eyes look kinda puffy, like, recently puffy.
"Henry? Where are you?" She asks slowly, testing to see how coherent he is.
"Uhh… M'l'nie… where're… where?" He pants, looking to her off-screen. Piper glowers, fists balling by her sides instinctively upon hearing the woman's (extremely hard to distinguish) name. She's probably all over him again, and he must of called her to get a break. No wonder.
"Who're you calling?" She asks, walking over and crouching down beside him. She looks at the phone, squinting to see Piper. "Oh, hey Piper."
"Hey." The young girl grinds out, wishing she could practice hitting moving targets with her nonexistent laser-eyes. If only.
"I hate you cut you guys off, but we're a bit busy right now. I'm sure he can call you back later." She declares, hanging up on Piper before she can get a word in.
When the phone turns to its normal wallpaper, Piper kicks it across the room, whips the towel out from under the door, gags herself with it and screams. That girl just makes her angry. Especially when she just decides things for her brother before he can have a say in it, boy if she wasn't on the other side of the world… Piper would do things. Oh, would she do violent things.
Over the last few months, Jasper had sent her descriptions of events with Melanie with as much detail as he could provide.
Just three that really got Piper's blood boiling:
1) Insulting and threatening Charlotte out of jealousy (without Henry knowing, for that matter)
2) Henry while they were going co-ops and she'd been specifically told not to (Henry got angry at her for that one, with reason)
3) Ghosting Jasper when he tried to find her brother
They are, in themselves, quite peculiar.
To this day, Piper can't really wrap her head around why Charlotte hadn't (or hasn't, she still hasn't done it yet) told Henry about when Melanie had insulted (threatened?) her. Maybe it was some form of case Charlotte was forming herself, or maybe just because somehow, he genuinely seems happy with her. Whether she's fake or not, (which the latter seems terribly and obviously incorrect) Piper isn't ready yet.
She doesn't know when she will be, but she imagines it will occur to her like a slap across the face.
Yes, she's told Henry about this type of stuff before… no, she hasn't. It was Charlotte. It was Charlotte who told him he wasn't graduating, yet everyone else was. It was her with the underlying confidence of trust in her friend that he wouldn't yell at her because he knows that she's being fair.
Piper doesn't know if her brother has that type of trust in her. Or if she has it in him, for that matter. Trust is a two-way street, after all.
The truth is, Piper doesn't know. And she won't, not without someone by her side to provide clarification.
Those people can't be by her side anymore. Not when they're thousands of miles away. Not in Dystopia.
School isn't the only thing in Piper's life that's repetitive. I wonder of you've noticed it yet… you won't notice it thousands of miles away. Not in Dystopia.
Seriously though, sorry (again) for the shorter chapter and Melanie incriminations.
I accidentally deleted the next chapter so now I have to write it all over again (the creative juices only flow at one in the morning so sorry if it turns out janky.)