Dumb Love (i love being stupid)

Woah Piper Has Friends!

Piper put her knife on her nightstand, collapsed onto her bed, and fought the urge to smother herself with the pillow. She had nothing to do, and that fact scared her.

Usually there was always something. A monster to fight, a battle tactic to learn and refine, someone to train, homework to do, chores to do, a fight in her cabin she needed to resolve, a prank someone played on another cabin that she also needed to resolve. There was always something to do. Not today though.

She wasn't sure why it made her feel uneasy, like something big was coming. There wasn't, she knew that. The biggest thing that could happen was a monster attack, and Piper knew how to take care of a decent amount of them. But the thought didn't help. She just rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for nothing.

In moments like these, she missed having Jason. Even when they were pissed at each other, they'd sit and wait together. They both said nothing and they both understood and while they waited for nothing, they weren't alone. She wanted him there, right now. She wanted him with her all the time, even though they never stopped fighting and half the time she was mad at him or he was mad at her. Piper still loved him. She'd always wondered how she could still love him. She was the one to break it off and you don't love a dead person you broke up with and spent the majority of his last days with a subtle sense of hatred. You can't love someone after death when you felt like that while they were alive. She wished that she could go back and not hate him during those last few days. The worst part is, Jason could still be dead. Her only wish was to get out of her own guilt, despite how fucking selfish it was. How much of a terrible person did that make her? It didn't matter. At the end of the day, Piper didn't think she'd ever get over him. She'd always love him, no matter how egoistic that made her.

She opened her computer, conveniently still on Instagram with a few new notifications. She had a friend request from... itzzhadegoyal and omg.a.shel. She'd forgotten about that. Piper added them back and looked at their most recent posts. Shel had a video of her wheezing and crying over a kid–he looked around 2 or 3–screaming "Holy shit!" at the top of his lungs. "What?" Shel has asked, still wheezing. "HOLY SHIT!" the child repeated, causing Shel to shriek with laughter. Zhade had a series of pictures and videos of her and Shel along with someone Piper assumed to be one of their parents or a sibling screaming to Chlöe in concert. They yelled the bridge of Pray It Away and the start of Have Mercy. Shel had fulani braids and Zhade's hair was in mini-twists when they shouted "Do you ever wonder, like who else is fucking your man?" along with Chlöe, followed by more screaming in the second video.

Piper sighed, ignoring the unjustified envy that began to bubble up, and tossed her phone to the side. There was no need to get jealous. Maybe one day she'd be able to go to a concert that wasn't Austin's with her friends.

Oh right, Piper had friends. Maybe they could help her!

Right on cue, a wall of mist appeared by her bed, revealing the ever so lovely Leo Valdez frantically waving in what looked like a workshop of sorts. Piper screamed "HI" like an overexcited toddler as she turned on her humidifier and flashlight to keep the IM pricing down

"Dude, you have school!" Leo said it like it was the coolest thing in the world. "What's normal school like?" Piper must have made a face since Leo burst into laughter. "Damn, that bad?"

"No, it's not that bad," Piper said. "Just... weird. There were a lot of things I forgot that came back to me instantly. Like, I forgot that you had to stress about grades and once I got back here I'm starting to put pressure on myself."

Leo snorted. "Why?"

Piper shrugged. "Literally don't know. It has to be some sort of muscle memory thing but for your... brain. Is the brain a muscle?"