Salute I H.S.

Chapter Six- Words of Wisdom & Doting Dogs

She shut the door of her bedroom behind her with a slam. It was two quick strides to her bed and she plopped down onto it, the tears flowing freely down her face.

The sound of her own ragged sobbing was awful and she wished she could stop it but she had given into the tears. She gasped for breath, her chest feeling impossibly tight. She beat on her sternum twice, trying to distract herself from the pain in her heart by making the pain more physical.

She hated that Andrew could make her feel like this. He'd always been able, always known the little spots to press on to make her collapse. She'd gotten used to the freak comments and all those digs about her being not normal. He'd never used their dad against her though. She didn't know how he could be so cruel.

Piper collapsed onto her back eventually, staring up at the off-white ceiling. There was a patch in the corner that was splotched with bright red that had faded to a pink over time. Piper and her dad had attempted to make elephant's toothpaste for her grade 8 science fair project when she was 10. It had been Piper's idea to study oxidation - her dad, working for University College London as a Literature Professor at the time, had gotten the chemicals from a colleague with little trouble. They may have been a little overambitious with the reaction and it ended up exploding across a large portion of Piper's bedroom. The ceiling stain had never come out.

She was most angry with Andrew not for what he had said about Piper but about what he had said about their dad. His insinuation, that their dad had died all alone, was unfair. Yes, he had been by himself in his study when he had his heart attack and was already dead when Piper had walked in, but he hadn't been alone.

He may have been by himself when he died, but he didn't die alone.

A knock sounded at the door and Piper groaned, figuring it was her mum coming to give her a talking to about how to act in front of guests. "Go away," she called out, throwing her arm over her eyes with an exasperated sigh.

The door opened, despite her angry voice, and Piper knew just by the tread that it was Harry. He shut the door behind him and took slow steps toward the bed. She felt his hands tickle along her thighs and then he was pulling down the hem of her dress. "You're flashing your knickers."

Piper groaned hopelessly, wishing she could just be swallowed up by the ground. "Fucking fantastic," she muttered, raising the other hand to her face so both of them covered her shame. "I'm a mess."

Harry's long fingers wrapped around her wrists and tried to pull them away from her face. She resisted for a moment but Harry was a lot stronger than she was so eventually she relaxed and let him drag her hands down to her sides. He put his hands on either side of her head and leaned over her body, his legs framing her knees. The light on her ceiling shone around his curly head like a halo and threw his face into shadows. Despite that, she could see the smirk on his face.

"Your brother is a wanker."

Piper snorted and then she was smiling through the tears instead. Harry leaned down to press his lips to hers, forcing her lips apart so he could explore her mouth. He tasted like turnips though so Piper whined, pulling away and angling her face to the side. When Harry made an offended noise in the back of his throat, Piper said "turnips" to which he laughed.

"Come on then," Harry said as he stood up, grasping her by the shoulders and attempting to drag her upwards. When she resisted, he sighed and let her go, climbing to sit on the bed beside her instead. "Honestly, I don't know why I bother," he muttered as he leaned across her to grab a tissue from the side table. "You can be so disagreeable sometimes."

She would have been more offended if Harry hadn't been smiling the whole time he said it. She wondered what his intentions were until he leaned over and began to mop up the tears from her face, wiping especially carefully around her eyes where her makeup had most definitely started running.