Just For Glory | COMPLETED

Ipso Facto

The months of the second semester of my sophomore year passed more quickly than I would've liked. Sure, the individual days seemed slow, but it felt like the middle of April just snuck up on us. I found myself wondering exactly where those three-and-a-half months went. Things were changing with just a hint too much ease.

Piper and I had made it some sort of unspoken ritual to talk to each other. We'd have random conversations every day before English. I'm not quite sure when I abandoned my hallway routine in favor of sitting in a classroom talking to Piper Nolan, but Laser was always too out of it to notice. In fact, he probably still sat there, talking to anyone who would listen. That kid smoked more than I did, which couldn't be healthy in any ways. Frankly, I was even getting a little tired of checking girls out. There were only so many girls who passed us by, and by late January, we were hardly seeing anything new.

She talked so fast. I don't know if it came from her familiarity with the rapid sign language or what, but Piper sometimes got going too fast for me to understand her. Besides, as I'd noticed early on, her mind jumped from one subject to the next in less than a second. I suppose there must have been connections in her mind, but she didn't vocalize those, so I often found myself wondering how we'd gone from talking about traffic lights to Chinese food.

Still, she was interesting, I'd give her that. Begrudgingly, mind you. She was sarcastic and had a rapid-fire sense of humor, even if she had trouble with comebacks. I don't think she was used to having to use them. She tried not to flaunt it, but Piper was incredibly smart. Maybe I was smarter than people gave me credit for, but so was she, and that was no mean feat.

There were other things I learned about Piper through her learning about me.

Piper surprised me with her honesty. No, that's not the right word, since she wasn't always telling the truth. It was more like...frankness. She was staunch on her beliefs, and even the thought that she was supposed to be "shy and quiet" didn't stop her from voicing an opinion. That included things that applied to me. This was something I had to learn on that particular day in April.

I had been behind the school with Laser, getting high. Even if he was an idiot and we didn't hang at school as much, he was always loaded. I wasn't in the best mood and didn't smoke much, so I got unpleasantly stoned sooner than I'd have liked. I found myself in a mostly empty side hallway during a passing period, and I ran into Piper. Literally ran into her. I laughed tonelessly at the impact, causing her to look up at me, alarmed. As was usual when I was stoned, I was talking before my brain could tell my mouth to shut itself up.

"So, Piper, do you really like being thought of as a high-and-mighty ice queen to guys? Because...I think that's how you're seen, kiddo," I drawled, not even mustering enough energy to administer a mental smack.

She looked surprised before her eyes hardened. I realized why, since she had not been looking at but studying my eyes, and she'd obviously noticed the bloodshot, glazed look I must have had.I'd learned very early on that her eyes darkened slightly to a more steely grey when she was angry, and that was what I was facing on the chilly morning. She pulled her jacket tighter around her torso before lifting her gaze to meet mine.

"Are you stoned?" she asked quietly. I blinked, taken aback. Instead of a reply, I opted to stare her down, blinking stoically.

"Donovan, answer me. Are you stoned?" Her tone was certainly more demanding as she emphasized each word, and she lifted her chin slightly. She knew the answer as well as I did, but I answered anyway.

"Yeah. Problem?"

Even though there was no way she was expecting something else, Piper dropped her gaze, shaking her head. When she met my eyes again, the grey was gone, replaced by that unusual mix of dark and light blue. I wondered if all people with blue eyes had such emotionally revealing irises. Did everyone's eyes change shades so easily and hers were just easier to notice?