Piper ~ H.S

~Fifty-Two~

A/N: Hello!! Sorry for the wait – as some of you might know, I moved houses over the weekend and the WiFi only just got hooked up today!!

Oh, and I'm just gonna give you this information right now, but I'm not telling you why I'm giving it:

37.6°C = 99.68°F
37.3°C = 99.14°F

That's for anyone who goes by Fahrenheit instead of Celsius when it comes to temperature :) now, with that said, read on :D Although I kinda got lazy with my editing so there will probably be typos and stuff in here. Lol

The court hearing for our case against Heath was next week – which is actually the week before me and Harry's first anniversary. So, even though next week is gonna be pretty fucking stressful for us...at least we have our anniversary coming up the week after – which should be a much happier time.

The red marks Heath left on my arm after he grabbed it actually faded after a couple days, which I saw as a good thing – since it meant that he didn't do any serious damage to me. But that doesn't change a thing. I'm still taking him to court after what he's done. What he did to me showed me that his temper can be an absolute nightmare when you push him to the limit – and with Piper being a little bit of a stubborn girl who can really test your patience sometimes, I am not giving Heath the opportunity to do to her the same things he did to me.

He knocked me around a little bit – fine. But if he even tries to lay a finger on my baby girl, I'm gonna tear his fucking head off.

And that's why me and Harry aren't only hoping to get Heath done for harassment or assault...we're also hoping to get sole custody of Piper. For now, we don't want Heath to get anything more than supervised visits with Piper. Maybe in a couple of years, I'll let his proper visitation rights be restored. But for now...hell to the fuck no. Now that I know the things he's capable of, I do not trust him to be alone with Piper anymore.

Yesterday, Harry had someone come in to copy the security footage of me and Heath onto a disk to show to the court. And before the marks on my arm faded away, I made sure I took a picture of them – to add on to the evidence we already had. And now, both me and Harry are pretty confident that we were gonna win this court case...but Harry's also hired a top family lawyer just to make damn sure of it. It seems like he's determined for Heath to get his just desserts after what he did to me. He's seemed to be so protective of me and Piper since that whole thing happened...and I thought that was so sweet of him. It was a really good feeling, knowing that Piper and I are protected.

I was straightening out the couch cushions that afternoon when my phone suddenly started ringing in my pocket – making me sigh and pull it out to check the Caller ID. However, I then frowned a little when I realized that it was actually a number I didn't recognize – and I hesitated for a moment before tentatively answering the call.

"Hello, Leah speaking," I spoke into the phone.

"Good afternoon. Are you Miss Leah Marrone?" An unfamiliar voice replied.

"Yes, that's me," I said with a nod.

"Ah, good. My name is Elaine. I'm the school nurse at Highgate Primary."

My eyes immediately widened.

"W...What..?" my voice was soft, "Nurse..?"

"Piper Marrone is your daughter, yes?"

"Yes..." my breathing was shaky, "why are you calling me? I-Is she OK?"

"Unfortunately, Miss Marrone, she's not," Elaine replied, "you see, one of her classmates is celebrating his birthday, and he brought in a plate of hot dogs earlier today for the whole class to share. But I think Piper's hot dog might've been undercooked, or maybe whoever prepared the hot dogs didn't wash their hands properly or something, because she's just started to get very sick. She's been vomiting, keeps complaining of tummy cramps, and she's got a mild fever. And since it's already been a few hours since she ate that hot dog, I think she might've gotten food poisoning."