Just For Glory | COMPLETED

Behold the Unraveling Mystery

I walked into English the next day almost ten minutes early. Despite my feeling that this was a mildly disturbing show of punctuality on my part, Piper seemed to have no problem being comfortably situated already. We didn't always end up at class so early, that I knew, but I guess we both had nowhere better to be that day.

Piper immediately looked up at me from her seat in the front row. She murmured something in greeting and I nodded back. Seeming hesitant, she finally asked, "So how are you...um, how are you feeling?" It sounded like an attempt at casualness, but we both knew what she was asking.

I smirked, as I found myself doing more and more around her. "Sober?"

She seemed nervous, and I wondered why as she nodded distractedly. "That's...good," she said, looking around. Then Piper sighed resignedly and looked straight at me. "Donovan, I'm sorry. You're right; I don't have any place telling you what to do. And I didn't need to tell you...all that. It was just anger. I don't mean that I'm okay with what you do, because I definitely am not. It just isn't really my business whether you do or don't."

Raising an eyebrow, I leaned back on my hands, which were resting on the edge of the teacher's desk. "So what, you've given up trying to see the good in me? No more trying to make me see the error of my ways?"

"I was never trying to change you." Piper crossed her arms defiantly, arching an eyebrow to mirror my expression. "Besides, I saw you stoned and got in an argument about you. Not to say that that was especially enjoyable, but it doesn't mean I don't like you. Sure, you've got flaws, big ones that I have no idea how to deal with. That doesn't make you a lost cause, Donovan." By the end, she had a sardonic half-smile curving her lips, and it was starting to feel less like a confrontation and more like a conversation.

"What does that make us then, Piper?"

"Friends. I'll be yours if you'll be mine," she said quietly, a blush tinting her pale, freckled cheeks. Needless to say, I was surprised. For one thing, she didn't seem to really have (or want) friends, and I sure as hell didn't. Still, I couldn't really say that we weren't friends. It was unexpected, though, that Piper would acknowledge our strange, could-be-called friendship.

She must have seen the incredulity on my face, because hurriedly, she said, "Look, I don't mean best friends¸ you know, late night talks about life an-and hanging out daily or something like that. It's just...wouldn't you sort of say that we're basically friends already?"

I shrugged, not mentioning the fact that I'd been thinking the same thing. "Guess we do have a habit of talking more often than most mortal enemies."

The tension broke. Piper smiled her little-kid smile, the one that was too big, too bright, too honest for a teenager. Sometimes she seemed so much older than I, but there were times when I could see her juvenility. "I don't know, Donovan, Bugs Bunny was always taunting old Elmer. Can you really compete, Fudd?"

"Hey...who says you get to be Bugs?" I whispered in her ear, walking past her to sit in my desk as some other classmates came in. She smirked at me, opening her mouth to retort when Jack stepped into the aisle next to her seat. Closing her mouth abruptly, she looked at him indifferently.

"Yes?"

Jack glowered, crossing his arms. While Piper looked stubborn when she did that, Golden Boy managed to look like a toddler, and a bad-mannered one at that. "Piper, your b—I mean, I think that you should sit with me at lunch, and...um...go somewhere," he said, attempting to lean down to Piper like I did, but she pulled back. He glanced at me briefly, seeming ready to direct his attention to me. Changing his mind, he looked back at Piper. Her eyes were narrowed and steely, but then a light of dawning flared in her eyes as she smirked at him.