Fate (PIPABETH FF) ✔️

Girls Talk

A N N A B E T H

I rushed inside my cabin and rushed past Malcolm. He shot me a weird look, but it then turned into a smug realization. "Ah, so I was right after all, huh?" he said, shooting me a sideways look. I glared at him as a blush crept up into my already tinted cheeks. I groaned inwardly and everyone shot me a look. Ah. It was night. And they were trying to sleep. Made sense why everyone was giving me nasty glares.

Wait, night already? Hadn't it just been, like, five in the afternoon? Where had all the time gone? Why was I so out of it today?

I jumped into my bed with a flustered expression, biting my lip and facing up into the darkness, thinking. I felt the familiar sensation of my mind beginning to wander. It started off simple enough- why would Leo even set something like that up in the first place? So out of the blue too? And then it gradually moved onto more unsettling thoughts, such as (but not limited to), did they think it was weird for me to leave so suddenly? Was it actually weird for me to do that? Did I overreact? Did Piper think it was weird? I hope not.

I took a deep breath, exhaling heavily. Overthinking sucked. It never ceased to suck.

You know what else sucked?

The way I nearly lost my marbles as I pushed on with that stupid Pocky game. The way I had to ball my hands into fists so tight in order to not shake in pure nervousness. The way I had to physically restrain myself from forgetting about the entire stupid Pocky ordeal to just give her a proper kiss, even if it meant screwing myself over in the long run. At that moment, I didn't care if anyone saw, and that scared me.

I wasn't stupid, of course. I knew from the beginning, as soon as I saw the stupid red box, that this was some sort of devious ploy made by not only Leo, but most likely everyone else besides Piper and me. If it were truly up to Leo, he would have mixed and matched the people, making it overall more horrifying and entertaining. But he stuck to the people dating, and then... us. Stuck in a horrid limbo of "fake dating" and "not quite fake dating, but not quite normal friends anymore".

Just what was going on?

Six steps ahead of everybody else. That was what I was supposed to be— not some bumbling fool. Not whatever this was, anyway. I wasn't supposed to be unsure of anything. Not to this degree.

I sighed quietly to myself, tugging off the ponytail my hair had still been tied up in and pulling the hair tie around my wrist. It felt a little nasty, to be all ready to knock out and sleep while not even having the chance to freshen up, but I didn't really want to risk the chance of me bumping into her in the bathrooms. Just the mere thought of encountering anyone that had participated in that horrid Pocky game sent a shiver down my spine. I didn't feel too keen on finding out how they felt about my sudden escape from the Bunker, and definitely was not ready for the inevitable questions I'd get.

After a few long minutes of just laying stiffly in bed, I forced myself to get up, my footsteps quiet with the aim to get to the bathroom area quickly before I officially headed to bed. I opened the door to the cabin quietly, lifting the door ever so slightly at just the perfect angle so its hinges wouldn't squeak in that quiet way they had begun to over the years.

My discretion nearly flew out the window when a hand suddenly grabbed my arm as I was turned around, trying to silently close the door. I stifled a yelp before whirling around, instinctively moving forward and setting a hand near the perpetrator's shoulder blade and grabbing a fistful of their clothing in preparation to chuck them down onto the ground, yet a tiny squeak of surprise stopped me in my tracks.

Upon closer inspection (and a little bit of squinting despite the darkness of the night sky), my heart rate seemed to spike concerningly as I found myself face-to-face with none other than Piper McLean—or, in other words, the current source of all my issues at the moment. Or the solution. It was a little hard to determine which.