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Chapter Eight: Truth is Long Overdue

She said she wasn't sure if she wanted to wake up but when did a teenage girl's body ever listen to her?

Piper groaned miserably. Long beams of morning light tickled her cheeks and a blunt knocking off in the distance tried to coax her out of her slumber. She shifted underneath the sheets and tried to block out these most foreign of stimuli, and that worked, for about six seconds. Then the knocking in the background got louder, more insistent. Harder to deny. A heavy breath was exhaled when Piper leaned up, yawned, and cast her weary eyes at the alarm clock. 7:23am. The knocking got a little louder again. Someone was at her door.

"Piper, may I come in?"

A honey-dipped voice caused the singer's eyes to percolate a bit. Meredith's voice. And unlike yesterday it was pleasantly devoid of anger. The teen leaned up quick as minute rice and straightened out her PJs, smoothed out her pillow-smooshed hair and drew her knees up against her chest.

"...Yeah. Come in." She beckoned.

The door clicked open. Meredith stepped forth with her lips curled into a small, timid, almost apologetic smile. Her wavy hair was freshly brushed and splashed heavy upon her modest shoulders. The early Washington light from Piper's window brought out the lustre in Meredith's hair. It made her tresses shimmer. Piper looked away, willing herself not to get sucked in. Why was it that no matter how she looked or acted, Meredith still seemed so relentlessly beautiful to her?

The older woman didn't say anything at first. She cast Piper a small half-smile, bit her lip, tucked a lock of golden-brown hair behind her ear, and let her silvery eyes roam about the room for a second, almost as if she were waiting for Piper to say something, until she finally gave in with a deep exhalation;

"How do you feel now?"

Underneath the sheets Piper had an arm cuddling her stomach. "A little better. Thanks for asking."

Beat.

"...I think we need to talk."

Piper was afraid Meredith might say something like that if she woke up. This was why she didn't want to wake up. That was why waking up was very, very, very, very bad. But at least Merry wasn't mad anymore. She didn't sound or look it, honestly. But what would they talk about? What could they talk about? Last night? Jesus, like Piper ever wanted to remember that mess again. And now Meredith knew everything...

"Okay." Replied Piper, all monotone and drab.

Meredith exhaled. "All right then. Get dressed and meet me downstairs. I'll make you something."

If Piper had her wish she would've skipped breakfast with Meredith altogether and just head straight for school. No such luck. It wasn't like she had the heart to tell her Merry `no' anyway. "I'll be down in a minute."

Meredith nodded in understanding and turned to the door. But when her hand grasped the doorknob, she stopped very suddenly, almost for no reason, and unexpectedly looked back. Piper didn't know at first because she was too busy distracting herself from Meredith by observing the nails of her free hand. She used black polish all the time and it was starting to chip. They needed a new coat.

Piper wondered how much polish she had left until she felt those crystalline grey eyes watching her almost as keenly as she felt the sunlight upon her face. So she looked Meredith's way. Piper stared at Meredith as Meredith stared at Piper. The expression on her face, Meredith's face, was unreadable. It was a kind of blank "reaching for something" stare, straddling a fine line between desperate and passive, longing and impotent. It was difficult to explain.

The songstress blinked. "What? What's wrong?"

"...N-nothing," Meredith bit her lower lip again as if to suppress something.

She left immediately after that.

Piper was left questioning that weird look Meredith pulled, but when she thought about what the older woman now knew, about her and Kristen, it seemed unimportant. That being said, she couldn't make Meredith wait too long for her downstairs, so she buried all her swirling thoughts and got the hell out of bed.

Piper headed straight for the bathroom to pee, take a shower, comb her hair, brush her teeth, moisturize her skin, then return to her bedroom. She re-painted her fingernails in thick ebony black after getting changed into some school clothes. Piper packed her bag with the homework she'd finished yesterday afternoon. By the time Piper set about tying the laces of her doc Martens the palpable wafting smell of breakfast had risen into her bedroom. Merry was waiting.

The teen slung her book-bag over her shoulder and headed downstairs. The dining room table was already occupied by two setups. One of them had four triangular slices of buttered toast, a fried tomato, scrambled eggs, some cold strips of ham with a cup of steaming hot coffee on the side. Meredith's breakfast. On the opposing end of the table was a bowl of sugar-sprinkled cornflakes in chilled milk, a chocolate mini-muffin and a tall glass of OJ (the drink, not the killer). Piper's breakfast.

When Piper came inside Meredith nibbled peacefully on one of her toast slices. She was ready for work in another one of those smooth grey pantsuits of hers. One pantyhose-wrapped leg was crossed over the other while her feet occupied a pair of black "scoop me" pumps. Dressed to educate.

Meredith gestured to the opposing chair when she noticed Piper at the doorway.

"Have a seat." She said.

Piper did just that, shrugging off her book bag, sitting down, and unfurling her spoon from a kitchen towel Meredith had wrapped it in. She took a quick glance at her watch. It was 8:03am. No coincidence for she and Meredith to be eating breakfast a good twenty minutes earlier than normal.

They didn't share many words at first. Piper scooped soggy, sugary cornflakes into her mouth. Her cheeks rolled in-between crunchy bites. Meredith sipped from her cup and ate of her eggs and ham. The room would've been deathly quiet if not for the inane banter of those three douche bags from Fox and Friends occupying the acoustics. Merry had this maddening habit of leaving the television on Fox during weekday mornings. Similar banter was not shared between Piper and Meredith. All was eaten in silence. Initially.

"...Who's Kristen...?"

She said it so suddenly Piper almost choked on her cereal. "Huh...?"

Meredith glared across the table. "What is she to you?"

For a minute there Piper sincerely believed that the only discourse to be heard at this table was going to be that of effeminate Republican Steve Dookie (...many excuses, `Doocy') and his buds. No such luck. They really were going to talk.

Piper swallowed her mouthful before it gagged her. "...She was my girlfriend."

"Was?"

"Yeah..." the teenager looked away sheepishly. "I broke up with her."

Meredith's eyes didn't tick an inch. "When?"

"Two days ago."

"Two days ago," she repeated. "The same night I found you crying in your room?"

With everything going on Piper had completely forgotten about that. "Yeah..."

"You told me you had a fight with Ashley."

"...Yeah."

"So you lied to me?"

She didn't call it a `fib'. Meredith was mad. She did a good job of hiding it but she was still mad. And yet she made things sound so cold. It wasn't like that at the time. Piper hadn't wanted to lie, she hadn't, but what was she supposed to have told Meredith that night? That she broke up with a girlfriend she didn't want anyone else to know about? That she'd cheated on said girlfriend with her? That she'd broken a girl's heart because she was too damn cowardly to put an earlier end to a relationship that never had a snowball's chance in hell of working out anyway?

Who would lend an ear to that kind of sordid bullshit?

Piper knew for a long time that she'd been acting in ridiculously poor judgement with Kristen, but having it all encapsulated by Meredith's brief and incisive quips made her realize how bad it all reflected on her. What did Merry think of her right now?

"I'm sorry." The teen apologized.

"So... you were dating her when we..."

"...Yeah."

The older woman paused to reflect a moment. Piper watched Meredith's jaw wiggle. It was a nervous habit she had. Meredith always did it when she was trying to hide being annoyed about something. "...Does she... does she know about...?"

Tch. Meredith still couldn't say it. "...Us? No, she doesn't. I promised you I wouldn't tell anybody."

They both paused. Silence dominated the table until Piper blurted again, "I'm sorry."

With an angry smirk Meredith shoved her fork into her eggs. "I'm not the one you should be apologizing to."

"Aren't you?"

She was about to shovel that sample of peppery egg into her mouth, but paused instead and asked tiredly, "Who is she?"

"...I don't follow."

"Who is she?" Repeated Meredith, dourly. "What kind of person is she? Where did you meet her?"

Now Piper was genuinely confused. "Why... would you want to know that?"

Pause.

"...I'm curious."

God, this was so uncomfortable. Why was Meredith even asking her these questions? Surely she didn't want to know anything about Kristen? But because Piper couldn't begin to get her head around why Meredith was doing this she just played along.

"I was hanging with Ashley and Zack," began the young woman. "It was a few months ago. Maybe five. We were at the piazza, we bumped into her, got to talking and then..."

Piper trailed off when Meredith stopped looking at her. The older woman, struggling with that irate smile, glared at her breakfast plate instead. Her fork swirled idly amid the egg and ham and toast crumbs. The scraping of metal against crockery made for an annoying sound effect.

"...`Five months`." Meredith mused ominously. "You've... been dating some girl for five months and I'm only finding out about this... now?"

For only a second Piper wondered why Meredith sounded so wounded by that of all things. It wasn't like she was obligated to tell her who she did or didn't plan to date. Then she recalled one of the other promises they made to each other. They had promised to always be open and honest with one and other. It was a promise they made three days after that bloodcurdling phone call, the one telling them that Terry McCullough, Piper's father and Meredith's husband, had been killed by mortar fire in Afghanistan. They made the promise because, in Meredith's own words, "all they had was each other now". It'd taken less than a year for Piper to break that promise.

"Merry, I'm sorry..."

With every apology she made the word `sorry' sounded more and more meaningless. The older McCullough didn't even acknowledge it. "...She's really in love with you, isn't she...?"

"...I guess."

"And these roses on my dining table. They came from her, didn`t they?"

She didn't know how those could've escaped her mind so quickly but as soon as Meredith pointed them out they were irritatingly present between the two of them, right there in the middle of the table. But whether it was Meredith's attitude or the fact that her period was still griping at her she didn't know, Piper suddenly felt defensive. Her heartbeat quickened.

"I broke up with Kristen." She stated, firmly.

If Meredith was listening she certainly wasn't showing it, and so she asked with cool and misguided wit; "...Did you sleep with her?"

"...A-are you kidding me?!" Now she'd had just about enough of this complete horseshit. The spoon rattled angrily in her bowl when Piper threw it down and grabbed her bag. "I'm going to school."

"Piper wait, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

She viscously slammed the dining room door shut and left the house before Meredith could catch up to her. On the way down the street, Piper was furious. Her hands were bunched into trembling fists and the blood thundered in her ears so hard she could barely hear herself think. Only one thought managed to get through the haze -- she jammed a spare cigarette between her lips and yanked out her lighter to fire it up.

Thank God for motherfucking Marlboro lights.

*

"Hey, Piper, are you going to eat that?"

Ashley's question was sudden, so sudden in fact that it stirred Piper from the quagmire of her thoughts. Without thinking twice about it she handed over the uneaten burrito in her hands over to her best friend, whispering a dull "here you go" at the same time. Ashley gave her a flirty wink of thanks. Even though the wrap was vegetarian (tofu rather than meat) it found a nice new home inside Ash's stomach. It had the added effect, welcomed or not, of giving her the energy to speak even more avidly about her handsome new boyfriend.

Piper did try to keep up with all the information Ashley was raving out about but after the second time she bragged about Damien's dimples Piper just tuned it out. She was still so utterly pissed off about what Meredith asked her this morning. Where did she get off asking her about sleeping with Kristen? It was no one's business but her own. Why would Meredith even feel entitled to know about something so damn personal? Whatever the reason it made Piper angry. It was why she was so desperate for a cigarette (but since Ashley had her "no smoking around me" rule she couldn't light one) even now.

"What do you think?"

Piper blinked at Ashley's new question. "Huh?"

"I said what do you think?"

"About what?"

The other girl paused. Her little head tilted left with an evaluating stare. She looked Piper up and down as it to survey or detect something, then leaned into Zack and muttered, "You're right, she is acting weird". Zack responded with a dim "I told you so" grunt and left it at that. He was more busy with the sketch pad in his hands. With a charcoal pencil he traced out the lines, wrinkles and creases of an old man, a janitor, sweeping autumn leaves into a pile. An anonymous portrait. Zack was an amazing artist. Often on afternoons like this where he, Piper and Ashley would spend their lunch hour out of doors, he brought his sketchbook and drew things around them they saw, like rowdy jocks on their way to the football field or beanie nerds heading down to the science department or flushed and sweaty cheerleaders doing last minute practice sessions in the hot sun (yeah, cheerleaders were his favourite amongst subjects).

"What's wrong?" Asked Ashley. "You've been acting weird all morning."

"It's nothing."

"When people say `nothing' it usually means something." A pause. "It's Kristen, isn't it?"

Jesus. She was hearing that name now more than she did when she was actually dating the girl. With so much going on in her life why was Kristen always the topic of choice?

Ashley continued. "Have you spoken to her since...?"

"...She came to my house last night."

"You're kidding! What happened?"

"Well she-" The jingle of her cell phone suddenly cut her off. Worst still was when she pulled it from her rear pocket and recognized the incoming number. Piper sighed and threw her face into her palm. "...Jesus Christ, it's her."

"Well, "speak of the devil", right? Answer it."

This had to be some kind of karmic payback. It felt like someone was dropping one turd after another on Piper's head right now. The teen sighed, flipped open her phone and answered. "Hello?"

"Hey. It's me."

Piper heaved a sigh. "Yeah, I gathered. I'm at school right now."

"Yeah, I know. So am I."

"So why are you-"

"I'm at your school." Kristen chipped in.

"What? What do you mean you're at my school?"

"I'm by the south side. Could you come meet me so we can talk?"

This was surreal. Kristen was actually here, where Piper went to school? It was damn near unbelievable. Without answering Piper looked in Ashley's direction, who judging by the look on her face she was just as confused. Why the hell would Kristen come all the way down here?

"Stay put, all right?" Piper huffed. "I'll be there in a minute."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Piper ended the call with a beep. The anger she was still nursing off of Meredith made her impolite enough not to say goodbye -- why lend credence to the idea that crap like that mattered?

"I heard everything on your side," Ashley said seriously. "What's going on?"

Tch. Now again Piper needed to ration her speech for her friend's benefit. All the Kristen stuff could be said but none of the Meredith stuff, the important stuff, had a window. But no matter what the circumstances or stipulations Piper needed to get something off of her chest.

"I came home afterschool yesterday and she'd left flowers at my door. I went to bed early and she calls me. Then in the middle of the night she just shows up out of nowhere to talk. Ash, she's driving me crazy."

Ever the sage, Ashley needed to think for only a moment before rendering her judgement.

"So you broke up with her," began the pianist. "but she doesn't seem to get it yet. Okay. Here it is. Normally I'd say you were getting what you deserve for screwing her around for so long? But in this case it's gotta be torture for her too and you're not Dick Cheney. You need to put a cap on it."

"How?"

"I dunno," Ash handed the empty (and smudged) burrito wrapper back to her. "You figure it out, L-Word."

Piper smiled a bit. Ashley could very easily have said "put this in the trash for me" but there was a more important point she was making. As usual Ash was bang on the money. No one could assess a situation the way she could. Piper knew what she had to do. The singer stood up, dusted the blades of grass off her ass, said a quick "wait here guys" before jogging across the grassy field, past the gyms and the cheerleaders, around the basketball courts and down the length of the science department until she led herself down a separate part of the school sealed between its rearmost building and the iron fencing that delimited the whole campus. The thin strip of stone between the two was no thicker than two yards and, standing on the sidewalk on the outsider's side of that fencing, was the blonde-haired girl herself. Her fists clung tight around two of its bars like a prisoner in a jail cell. Her doe eyes lit up with giddy expectation when Piper arrived to meet her.

"Piper..." she smiled dampened a bit when she wondered aloud, "How are you feeling? Do you feel a bit better?"

Meredith asked her a similar question this morning. When Piper was reminded of that she remembered what Meredith said and when she remembered what she said it made Piper mad all over again. And Mad Piper, as the future would know, was less than willing to further entertain this nonsense.

"Kristen, what the hell are you doing here?"

She winced at the sharp tone in Piper's voice. "I skipped school so I could see you. We didn't finish last night."

Piper recalled last night well. As far as she was concerned it ended exactly where it needed to but it was when Kristen mentioned that she'd skipped school to be here that she realized that this really had gone on too long. For most kids ditching was no big deal, it was something everybody did at some point, but Kristen's parents, as Piper knew, were strict as all hell (which was why she was too terrified to tell them she was gay). If they found out about this they'd go apeshit, but the only reason she was even here was because of Piper, which made it her responsibility to resolve this... thing with Kristen before it really got out of hand.

"This is getting... really old, really fast. Do you realize how this makes you look? You like you're five steps away from bunny boiling."

A pause. Then a little snigger. "No one makes me laugh like you do. I love that about you."

"This isn't a joke, Kristen! And if it was it stopped being funny when you told Meredith about us last night. You've got to stop and just fucking listen to me, okay, because I can't make it clearer than this! You and I are not dating anymore! We're through, okay?"

Kristen buckled but didn't falter. "...I don't believe that."

"You don't get to choose."

"Prove it to me then. Kiss me. Kiss me like you were going to last night before your step-mom barged in on us. Prove it to me."

The idea made Piper glance about. Aside from the distant chants of cheerleaders gearing up for their next pep rally, no one else could be seen or heard. Not a soul. This was the kind of place two students could share a kiss and not be found out.

"I'm not doing that." Piper declared.

"Why? Because you ran out of chapstick or because you're afraid you might feel something?"

"Neither. I won't."

"Won't what?"

Piper sighed. "Feel anything. I won't."

"You don't know that."

"Yes I do."

Kristen quirked an eyebrow. "How?"

"...Because-"

"Because why, huh?!" Snapped Kristen. "Because why?!

"Because I don't love you."

"...Oh y-yeah, and what makes you so sure?!"

"BECAUSE I'M IN LOVE WITH SOMEONE ELSE!"

Beat.

It was out there -- finally. The truth. It sucked the steel out of razor-sharp insurgency in literal seconds. The heiress' shoulders visibly slumped and the sparkle of defiance in her eyes melted away like it had never been there in the first place. That sparkle was in turn replaced by something very wet. It made Piper cringe, the wounded look in Kristen's cherub face -- but in her heart she knew she had to say it. This had to stop.

The heiress looked at her shoes as the lower of her lips quivered. Piper expected Kristen to say something like "who is she?" or "how long has it being going on?" or something like what Meredith did this morning, but she didn't get that. What she got instead was silence and dampening eyes that trembled so vividly she thought they might break.

"It happened two weeks ago," Piper explained. "I slept with someone else. I'm sorry, but... she's the one I wanna be with... and as much as I like you, I just don't... feel as strongly as you do."

A teardrop hit Kristen's school shoe.

"I know that you probably hate me now. I deserve it. But honest to God, Kristen, I never meant to hurt you. You're so sweet and giving and beautiful... and one day you'll meet a girl who really loves you for all that... but that girl isn't me. So please, Kristen... go to school and forget me, okay?"

Kristen said nothing. She simply stood there, shoulders hunched, face tipped forward, eyes shaking, lip quivering, tears leaking freely down her rouged cheeks. Piper sympathetically reached through the bars to just cuddle the girl's shoulder but she jerked away as if scolded by acid.

Then the end of lunch bell blared.

"I'm so sorry, Kristen..." Tears of her own began to form. "I have to go now."

Piper waited just a little longer to see if Kristen might say something, anything, that might give her hope that she hadn`t completely crushed the blonde girl's heart. She didn't. So Piper did the only thing she could do. She left. She stepped back and carefully made her way around the science building... but didn't make it as far as the second corner before she slumped against its wall and sobbed tears of absolute depression. Wracking sobs that made her lungs shake, surging tears that stung her eyes, and worst of all, gut-wrenching guilt.

Meredith was angry and Kristen was heartbroken...

...and as far as Piper was concerned... it was nobody's fault but her own.

**********

Afterthoughts

* Yup, everyone's in a bit of a tizzy right now. To be honest I found this chapter the hardest to write because I really wasn't sure how Meredith should react the day after Kristen let the cat out of the bag. I had a lot of ideas as to how I should've written that scene and even now I feel like it wasn't quite... right, but I knew implicitly that I wanted Merry to be angry, because I'd be angry too if I were in her shoes. I'd be pissed that Piper lied and kept things from me. I'd be pissed that Piper had been sleeping with Kristen (who happens to be the same age as Piper and in its own way has to sting a little -- it might make Merry wonder how she could compete with a girl that young, further stoking her jealousy). I also think Meredith would be pretty mad at herself for feeling jealous and not knowing better. She's straddling her feelings for Piper while at the same time still trying to act as her legal guardian, which is probably a hell of a lot tougher than it sounds. Okay now I'm just rambling, as I do have a tendency to do. Keep reading future chapters, especially the next two, since chapters nine and ten represent the next big step in Piper and Meredith's relationship.

* One other thing I've realized I like about this story (that I didn't really notice before) is that no one is innocent. Piper's cheated and lied, Meredith slept with her stepdaughter, Kristen's behaved like a stalker, Zack is judgemental and Ashley's smug. I like flawed people. They seem more real to me than 'idealized' caricatures.

* You know the drill. If you like what you read, visit my blog, http://ksn-kaiser.blogspot.com/ or email me at moonknuckle@hotmail.com.