Dumb Love (i love being stupid)

Oh American High School! What an Experience!

Many things were... Piper didn't really know how to describe it. Odd? Weird? Generally blah? A fucking mess of indistinguishable emotions?

    Whatever it was, grief felt like that. The world was piling onto her shoulders, but rather than people turning away, they stopped to stare. They would give her condolences and advice and the ones with the most audacity would not-so-subtly give her information to a therapist. She fucking hated it.

    She'd always hated attention. In her mind it was like a two-in-one kit of being the daughter of anyone famous. "You get rich by being born and you have the most opportunities out of everyone else, but at a price!" said the perky salesman with a muffled speaker voice that lived in Piper's brain after watching infomercials and RuPaul's Drag Race at the same time at 2:12 a.m. "You walk outside to the paparazzi making money about the fact that you exist! Make a mistake? It will haunt you for the rest of your life and also, your dad's career depends on you being perfect. So good luck, and don't fuck it up!" It was a shit deal. Especially since everyone but her father seemed to look at her. She longed for his attention, but never got it. Millionaire actors were just like that, she supposed.

    Then she found out that she was the child of a goddess. What the fuck was one to do with that information? She hated attention, but being the child of a goddess was yet another shitty deal ("Be beautiful and have the powers people can only dream of having. But, no one but other demigods can know. Good luck, and don't fuck it up.") and she wanted nothing more than to shout to the world, LOOK AT ME AND LOOK AT THIS FUCKED UP SHIT. She was still working on what she'd actually say, since that didn't make much sense without context. But it didn't matter. No one would look at her anymore and since the scandal of Tristan McLean being broke, but then it turned out that millions of people had their money and shares stolen by Triumvirate Holdings had blown over. Then the Jake Steel franchise had come to a close. People stopped caring and no one would look at her. It was odd in that weird and generally blah way. She was grateful for it, of course. It's what she's always wanted. No more paparazzi (usually), and she could live her life. But she still couldn't tell anyone.

    And then Jason... And then Jason died. And everyone looked at her again. She didn't want to be looked at by anyone, not even her dad. But he was on top of her. "I understand how you feel," he says. "I'm here for you," he says. Piper didn't really care. She wanted to yell at everyone, LEAVE ME ALONE! That one was pretty self-explanatory. If she ever actually said that, her father's reputation would be tarnished and she'd be in every tabloid and magazine and anti-rich-actor Twitter page (X page? Is Threads actually Twitter/X now? Piper didn't know what the fuck was going on there.) No one would leave her the fuck alone.

    Whatever. It didn't matter. School was starting. Actually, it had started two months ago, but she had just moved to Tahlequah. It was weird to have a 100% new property made just for her and Tristan. The house wasn't fully unpacked yet, which didn't say much. In reality the furniture she did have was placed in a lovely array of grays and blacks and minimalism (just in case someone wants to do a celebrity house tour), but the majority of it has yet to be delivered. Thankfully, her dad said she could decorate her own room and the movie room, which meant she could have color. The movie room didn't have any furniture, and all Piper had in her room was a white bed frame, dresser, desk. Even so, it got her a bit happier. She even got a little nail kit and painted them. Just random multi-colored swirls, and they all looked good, other than her right pinkie. She fucked up her right pinkie, but who gives a fuck at this point?

    It hadn't taken long to do, and it was calming. She'd played Mitski and Taylor Swift on her JBL clip and felt nothing. Not that heavy sort of nothing, where it's invisible and weighs you down until you can't feel anything but that horrible and empty nothing. It was a comfortable nothing. It took her mind off of Jason and school.