Before You Say Goodbye

55

The next day, as soon as I woke up, I had this urge to be somewhere else, somewhere that wasn't my house. Pulling on sweatpants and a hoodie that I had stolen from Joaquin a long time ago, I skipped down the stairs. I know a place that will always have me, will treat me as its own.

It was too early in the morning for Alan to have woken up, but I knew my mom was already awake. The house smelled strongly of coffee – her one drug to keep her day going.

I had thought mom would be inside the kitchen, cooking something as she usually did at this time of the day, but amazing me, she sat on the couch, a big box of cookies in her hand. She looked up at me as I came to stand at the bottom of the stairs and smiled, patting the empty space next to her. I shook my head. Even though the cookies were tempting, I needed to get to Terry's before I lost my newfound will to get out of the house. I think my two days of not stepping out of the house have messed with my head.

"I need to get to Terry's."

She shrugged. "Well, your loss. You're the one missing out on these amazing, double chocolate chip cookies."

I gave her a blank look before letting out a groan. She knows my weakness and she was attacking that. Low blow, mom, low blow. "I hate you," I grounded out playfully, dropping on the couch next to her and snatching the box off her hands.

Mom laughed, "No, you don't." She took a small bite out of the cookie that she had in her hand, looking at me from the corner of her eyes, "So, it's been a few days, are you ready to talk about whatever's been bothering you yet?"

"I don't think I would ever be ready to talk about it," I said, "Mostly because I don't know what I should be talking about."

"Maybe you can start telling me what your fight with Roman is about?"

I shrugged, "We didn't fight. Yet. I learned some truths and I've been trying to digest it."

"Okay," she nodded, picking another cookie from the box in my hand, "And what's the truth?"

I didn't know why, for some reason, I didn't want to tell her what I had learned about Sophia. That particular truth felt like it was a serious invasion of a dead girl's privacy and telling anyone about it didn't sit right with me. I didn't want to do that, not to Sophia. The other truths though...

I looked at the window to the side, my eyes falling on the window of the house next door. The window was open and I could see people inside doing about their life. Kate was doing dishes in her kitchen. I heard Milo whine in the background about some toy that he had lost. Mom patiently waited while I tried to collect my thoughts and form my words. "Apparently, Piper has known Roman and Viktor for a really long time. She befriended them when she used to visit her grandparents in Athens."

She blinked. "Oh-"

"And she told me she's in love with Roman."

Speechless, mom stared at me. Both her eyebrows rose in surprise and her half-eaten cookie had fallen off her hand to the ground. "Yeah," I nodded, ignoring the stab of pain in my chest, "I have no clue why all of them didn't tell me or anyone else that they've known each other for a while. And, I-" I cut myself off, shaking my head, "I don't understand, mom. If she's in love with Roman, why is she dating Viktor? Does Roman reciprocate her feelings, if that's the case, why is he dating me? Nothing makes sense to me anymore."

"Why don't you ask them then?" she asked after a few minutes of processing everything that I'd said, "Ask Piper why she was dating Viktor. Ask Roman if he loves Piper. Ask everyone why they didn't tell anyone that they were friends."

That sounded like the sensible thing to do. But, I wasn't sensible. I shook my head immediately. "I need some time to process all of this first," I said. Mom undoubtedly knows me well enough to know that I wasn't telling her everything and so when she gave me a look, her eyebrow raised in question, I sighed, "I'm very scared," I said.