Piper The Day She Fell

Piper

The Day She Fell

Now I just have to get Abby on the record saying that Sam dealt to the guys' soccer team. I chew the gum, a gush of peppermint flooding my mouth. Carefully, I plan my next words.

But Abby starts shaking her head, red curls flopping around. "It was Jacey," she blurts. "The note. It was from Jacey, not Mr. Davis. I didn't know what it said when I gave it to you. But she wanted me to help her arrange a meeting up there between the two of you."

"She did?" Anger lances through me. Jacey's lies just keep piling up.

Abby chomps her gum. "She said she wanted to apologize, and she wanted to do it there. I told her I wouldn't lie to you, but I guess I was an idiot to pass along that note without reading it."

Jacey wants to apologize? My rage, sharp and rigid, starts to bend. "Do you think she's still up there?"

"She might be. Maybe"—Abby shrugs—"maybe you don't need pills, Piper. Maybe you just need your friend back in your life. What she did was super messed up, and I doubt anyone has ever tried to apologize this awkwardly before. Like, ever. But she's trying."

She's trying. I think about the drug story, about the segue ready on my tongue. The app on my phone that's already recording.

But this .

Finding a way to forgive my best friend. Finding a way to get past this. Wouldn't that be better than some story? I'd finally have someone on my side again. Someone who knows me, inside and out.

Alex is great, he really is. But he's not Jacey. Maybe Jacey can help me get out of this mess. Maybe she'll listen the way no one else will.

I look up at Abby and see the hope flickering in her eyes, and I get a strange twinge of guilt for trying to entrap the only person who's attempted to comfort me about Noah and Jacey.

"Thanks for telling me, Abby." I turn away from the truck, pull my keys from my back pocket, and trek out to my car at the edge of the lot. Normally, I'd walk to the trail, but it's four; Jacey may have given up on me already. I buckle my seat belt like a good girl. Like a girl who's not about to get expelled.

The car is hot, so I roll my window down. A gust of wind ruffles my hair, and beneath the whistling, it sounds like someone is calling my name.

An unfamiliar blue truck rumbles by on the street that borders the lot, and Noah's head sticks out the window. The truck does a U-turn and then enters the lot, parking in the space beside mine.

Noah gets out and ambles toward me. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice truck," I say, avoiding the question.

He shrugs. "It's my brother's. Mine broke down over the weekend, and Nate is taking the semester off. But it doesn't have air, and the seat belt sticks, and—hey, can we talk?"

"Now's not a good time," I say, my voice cracking. My nose is still running from when I conjured up those fake/not-fake tears. "I'm sort of in a hurry." I turn the key in the ignition and reach for the button to roll up the window.

"Piper, please." He reaches out, placing his hand over the window so I'd have to smash his fingers to shut him out. I consider it. "I'm so sorry."

"It doesn't matter, Noah." It doesn't matter that Jacey and Noah both knew the way I felt about him, and they did it anyway. "It was just a date. We went as friends. I was stupid to get so upset. I'm headed up to the Point to tell Jacey the same thing."

"You are?" He keeps his hand on the window, running the other one through his ash-brown hair. The hair I've spent countless hours daydreaming about, hoping that one day, I'd be able to lazily run my fingers through it. Even back when Noah was skinny and awkward—before time carved so many changes on his body—I'd wanted to be held by him. I thought we were there.

"If she's still waiting."

"Well, let me come."

I let out a dry laugh. "You want to come with me to talk to Jacey? How's that going to work?"

"I don't know," he says, shaking his head. "Let me walk you up there. Let me say what I've been trying to say since Saturday. Please. I'll leave as soon as we get there."

"What makes you think I want to hear what you have to say?"

"You don't. I know you don't. But you're my friend, Piper, and I don't want things to be like this. Everything had just gotten back to normal with Jacey, and then I went and screwed it all up. I just want things to be the way they were between the three of us."

Oh. The three of us. My chest twinges. This isn't the I'm sorry I kissed Jacey and now I know I want to be with you, Piper speech. This is the let's forget any of this ever happened speech. Let's forget my hand on your waist, Piper. Let's forget the way my lips brushed your ear when I whispered to you, sending chills through your body. Let's forget the way I said you looked pretty in your homecoming dress and you believed me.

This is that speech. The twinge is distinct. It pushes through the aching pain brought on by the rest of the day.

Best friend: gone.

Sister: gone.

What I thought this was with Noah, what I'd hoped for the past seven years: gone.

"At the very least," he says, lips quirking into a half smile, "let me protect you from whatever lurks in the woods on the way up."

And there it is. That little bubble of hope is back.

"You're hardly a match for whatever lurks in the woods," I say, remembering the tales we spun as he, Jacey, and I hiked up to the Point over the years. "But get in. I can always sacrifice you to buy myself time to escape."

His smile widens. "Thank you." He swoops around the front of the car and gets in, the scent of library books and citrus shampoo wafting in with the breeze.

Noah is quiet as we make the short drive to the tiny lot at the base of Mount Liberty, his hands twitchy in his lap. So much for this apology he's been planning.

I park, and my phone rings again as I turn off the car.

"Who's calling you?" he asks, coming around to meet me.

"No one," I say, pushing back the guilt rising in my throat and slamming the door. I click decline and slide the phone into my back pocket. Noah presses a hand to my back as we start up the rock-strewn slope, and I flinch.

He grabs his hair in a panic. "I'm so sorry. I don't—"

"It's fine," I say quickly, even though it's not fine. But I say it because I wish I hadn't flinched. I wish he'd left his hand on my back.

"Do you really think she's still up there?" Noah asks, trying to change the subject.

"Not sure. Have you two…spoken?"

"No, it—look, it was a mistake," he says, eyes on the dirt path in front of us. "What you saw at the dance was a mistake. We'd been joking around, and then Jacey—I don't even know what happened."

So, it was Jacey? She kissed Noah? But why? Jacey has never mentioned liking Noah. She knows how I feel about him.

That little bubble, delicate as it is, grows slightly.

I don't know what will happen with Savannah or the tests, but this moment blurs everything. Noah peers down at me, features ragged with worry. And I keep hoping, even though it will make things more difficult with Jacey.

Jacey, who I'm about to meet face-to-face in the place we've shared all of our fears and secrets and desires. She knew my biggest desire.

Did she really use it to hurt me?

Noah turns to face me, rubbing his hands together nervously. "Look, Piper, there's something I've been meaning to tell you for a long time. Since before the dance. This isn't easy for me."

My heart quickens. This is it. I reach out to take his hand, to calm him.

But Noah's body stiffens. I can feel how delicate my bubble of hope is now. Bubbles are just air trapped inside soap molecules separated only by the thinnest layer of water. The slightest prick can pop the film, leaving nothing but a tiny soapy puddle. Noah smiles, but it's uneasy, so I release his hand. He kicks a rock, which goes skipping off the mountainside. "Go on," I say, turning to walk ahead.

"Wait up!" he calls. "Aren't you going to try and outkick me?"

I force a grin. "I'm not much of a kicker." That was always Noah and Jacey's game. "But sure, I'll give it a shot."

I set my sights on a small stone and wind up my leg. When I make contact, it goes spinning through the air, plummeting into the shrubs that grow along the cliffside.

"Nice one," Noah says with a laugh. That sound makes my heart do a little dance. I could listen to that laugh every second of every day for the rest of time.

When we reach the Point, I shiver. The air up here is so cold compared to below. The place looks empty. It's quiet too. No sound of Jacey chomping licorice.

No Jacey, period.

"Guess I missed her," I say, relief and disappointment tangling inside me. I step forward, leaning against the guardrail so I can peer deeper into the chasm below, and Noah inches closer.

Something about today's events—about being here with him alone for the first time—emboldens me. I pull myself up onto the guardrail like I did that day with Jacey a couple years back.

The memory plays out before me. I was standing with my sneakers threaded through the bars, resting on the lower rail, shins leaning against the top one. My arms were spread wide, like Rose from Titanic . "I could be a bird," I said, my body barely tipping out over the canyon. "I could be a bird and fly from here." I leaned farther, testing the rails, tempting fate. So unlike me.

Or maybe just like me. The Piper that could become something else up here, empowered and free. "My wings would take me up there."

I pointed skyward, smiling into the blazing sun, turning to face Jacey with a laugh.

She laughed back. Her shoe carved mindless swirls into the dirt. "How about you stay a girl for today?"

"Fine," I huffed, stepping down onto the gravel. "But they're having all the fun." I nodded toward the chirping creatures that swooped between the boughs of a nearby tree.

This time, I don't stop with my feet on the bottom rail. I don't let Jacey's voice talk me out of it. Instead, I wrap my legs around the top bar, flipping myself up into a sitting position, legs dangling over the cliff.

"Careful." Noah slings an arm around my stomach.

I place my fingers over his, a demure smile tugging at my lips. "What, are you scared? Get up here." I pat the cold metal beside me.

Noah squints through his glasses, considering it. Then he grins, and I'm liquid, dripping down the bars.

He pulls himself up and scoots close to me. "Feeling better?"

"I think I am now, thanks to you."

"Not a problem, m'lady." He tips a hand toward me.

I shiver again, perhaps a little dramatically, and Noah doesn't miss a beat. He shrugs off his orange jacket, draping it over my shoulders.

He leaves his arm slung loosely behind me, and I snuggle back into his chest. His breath is warm on my neck. Tingles course through my body, lighting up every inch of me. I'm more alive than I've ever been. My mind made up, I take a breath and turn, slinging my arms around his neck and pressing my lips to his.

Noah jerks back, eyes wide. "Whoa, whoa, Piper—"

My arms slide from his neck. Nausea kicks me in the gut hard. "I'm going to be sick," I mumble. My breaths are short. Too short. My vision tunnels.

"No, no, you're okay. It's just—you were upset. You got confused, that's all."

"I wasn't confused!" I snap. "I'm in love with you! Don't you know that? I thought…"

Noah gapes at me in horror. "Piper, I'm really sorry. I was trying to tell you. I—I'm in love with someone else."

"Someone else," I say flatly, pulling one knee up and over the bar until I'm straddling it.

It all makes sense. And it all makes the sickness rise in my throat again.

"Someone else who's my best friend."

"I'm sorry," he repeats. But the words are empty and meaningless. It's all so meaningless right now. He's in love with Jacey. She might've been trying to bring me here to tell me the same thing, but right now I don't care.

I just want to stop his empty words. I just want him to hurt the way I hurt.

"You're sorry." I laugh softly, bitterly, and blink away the darkness. "Well, you know what? I'm sorry too," I say, nodding maniacally. "Sorry to be the one to break it to you that no one cares, Noah." I let the words crawl out, punctuating each one with a generous helping of scorn. "When are you going to wake up and realize that Jacey only cares about herself? She just kissed you to punish me. I doubt she spared you another thought after she succeeded."

The gum in my mouth is stale and hard, so I spit it out, watching it disappear into the foliage below. I swing my other leg over the bar, my back to the cliff now. "She used you. Now you're about as useful to her as chewed gum. As far as I'm concerned—and as far as Jacey is concerned—you don't exist."

Yeah, I used Savannah's words. I used them against one of my closest friends. They'd been hanging there at the forefront of my mind ever since I stormed out of Savannah's bedroom.

I want to take them back, to apologize, but then Noah's face contorts, and he grabs my wrist. His fingers clamp down tighter as his eyes narrow. A vein on his forehead bulges, and his hand squeezes harder. I gasp in shock and pain, but he doesn't let go.

Finally, I yank my wrist away, and he releases me. But my momentum takes me back.

Too far.

I topple backward, and Noah scrambles to grab me. But his hand closes around the jacket, which slips free of my body. The orange jacket flaps before me in the late-afternoon air. Like a fiery ball, it flickers, extinguishes, and blazes brighter again.

Then it recedes as my legs fly skyward.