Mac Vs PC: Infected

Command-E

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life.

- Steve Jobs (Macintosh/Apple)

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Piper didn't know how she got here; not here as in William's place, but here as in this emotional hurricane. Months ago she was just a girl who loved to play soccer and volleyball, and dabbled in swim and lacrosse. She was just a girl who competed against her competition with skill and accuracy. She didn't question her moves because she spent enough time analyzing them in the first place; but here she was in a place where she couldn't recognize her own emotions. Here she was a cheating girlfriend and a weak competitor. How did she get here?

"Why don't you sit down?" Will sat at the edge of his porch watching the dew set on his lawn. He didn't glance her way but she could feel that all his attention was on her.

"I can't." She couldn't! She needed to move, she needed to be doing something.

"Piper, whatever it is," he shrugged, "You can tell me."

The fact that he was so open to what she wanted to tell him had her stomach in knots. She wanted to blame Mac for this, like everything else in her life he was the blame for its demise. But here she couldn't. This was all on her; albeit, it wouldn't have happened if they didn't live in such close proximity.

When did she become this unmoral girl who lost games and lost respect? "It's about the living situation with Mac." She bit her lip, the first and only sign of her nerves. The pause caught Will's eyes as she turned his somber look onto her flustered pacing. "You were right."

"I know." He leaned back and snagged onto Piper's hand slowing her gait. "I heard."

"What? How?" It had only taken her three days to cough up the courage to face Will (and her infidelity). How could he have heard it in just three.... Mac. If that boy was bragging about what happened between them she was going to do more than suck the air out of his body, she was going to deflate him with her fists.

"I still talk to some kids from Madison: apparently you're a big deal there." She knew that Will didn't know the extent that her great sport records influenced her social record, and she was hoping that he wouldn't find out.

"I am." She shrugged the fact off and stared at where their hands met. "How can you touch me?"

"Because I love you. It doesn't just go away." He pulled at her hand until she sat next to him on the porch. "I heard about Gloria and what she did with your brother."

Your brother. The term sounded like nails on a blackboard and Piper responded with the matching flinch. She knew why he mentioned it and how he was trying to differentiate himself and Mac; but she didn't think of him as her brother now. He was in an all-new category and that frightened Piper. She didn't like the unknown, didn't respect the fear it instilled in her. And taking the siblings label off their relationship table resulted in an imbalance.

She caught onto his last words "...I feel like that happened because you knew that's what Gloria did and you want to be her."

Was that true? Piper looked away from William and stared hard at the sidewalk leading to the street. She didn't want to be here anymore, but did she kiss him back because she had something to prove to Gloria. Gloria wanted Mac; Piper took him as retaliation.

A sigh of relief came with the flawed realization. It held large plot holes, but Piper clung to the excuse. Mac had gone out of his way for years to make her life a living shit show... there was no way she was attracted to him.

"I guess." Piper ran her hands through her ponytail, flicking the end over her shoulder. Her thoughts were interrupted by William's tongue invading her face.