Mac Vs PC: Infected

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"Don't compare yourself with anyone in this world...if you do so, you are insulting yourself."

-Bill Gates (Windows/PC)

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Piper slowly turned around to face Gloria. "I'd rather forfeit than obey you now. Is this another test?"

"Don't get so defensive." Gloria reached up around Piper's head to flick her ponytail. "I just want a taste. You can have him back afterwards."

"I don't want him back." Christ, she didn't want him in the first place. But she didn't want Gloria to have him either. Indignantly, Piper smoothed her ponytail back into place. "I don't have control over him to match him up with you. We barely talk anymore."

"Don't think that just because I'm gone, I don't keep up with you. I know that you and him are reevaluating your childhood friendship. I know that he comes to every one of your games." Gloria pushed through the inventory exit as if she owned the place and in a way Piper guessed she did.

"He wasn't at my last game." Piper hated that she sounded so weak, that she had became so predictable. Being predictable was the death to an athlete's future. An athlete needed to have the stadium on their feet questioning what was coming afterwards. An athlete's opponent couldn't be able to guess where the ball was headed. A predictable game was a loss.

She could remember the times when Gloria was in awe of Piper's strategies and moves, but now Piper was losing her games and her control like water through a sift. She couldn't grasp onto the liquid tendrils of power if her life depended on it. She was in limbo. Stuck in a state of a lie that was destroying her chances for happiness and freedom.

"Oh the game you lost? I always told you that the first game sets the tone for the season." Gloria tilted her head to looked back and Piper caught how beautiful destructive Gloria could be. "Or do you not remember what I taught you?"

Piper bent her head as the rage flooded her body. "I remember." She knew that Mac would be ashamed of her subservient behavior but she had to play the part to convince Gloria not to pursue Mac. It didn't matter that Mac wouldn't touch Gloria with a high jump pole because when he rejected her it would be Piper and her juniors who suffered. A flashback of a tearful Erin and Piper knew she couldn't put her junior in the line of fire again.

"I want to go over your new players stats and talk to this coach of yours." A small smile graced Piper's lips; Coach Douchbag was in for it. If he thought Piper was insubordinate, then he had another thing coming with Gloria. "He really recruited a cheerleader. Really?"

Relaxing bit by bit, Piper eased into a conversation with her mentor. She didn't know what to do with this new feeling deep inside her gut that she was betraying her juniors by spending this time with Gloria and not checking on them. She knew she should dismiss herself and see to them herself and not leave them in Mac's care. But it had been so long since Gloria left and something in her ached for this reunion. She had lost Pam, she didn't know if she was ready to give up Gloria. It was the only connection other than Mac to her past years where Pam was alive.

Walking through the foyer, Gloria wrapped her arm around Piper's waist. "You know there's no one like you in college. No one like you at all."

Piper glanced over at her mentor who, like herself, wasn't the one for feelings or empty compliments. She stayed quiet.

"I know I've been harsh on you. Maybe harder than I should have, but it was because I love you." Gloria's fingers clinched around Piper's ribs and she didn't know if she wanted to relax into Gloria or run far far away.

"I want you to admit what you did to me. I want you to know that was wrong." Piper's voice was quiet but held the same strength she carried since Gloria's graduation. She wouldn't wilt like she did her junior year. She was older now, wiser now. She had two girls to take care of, she wasn't just thinking of herself now.