Piper
Tati’s taking the afternoon off for her biannual teeth cleaning. She never misses dental appointments. She never pays bills late or forgets to get her Volvo’s oil changed. She’s the most disciplined individual I know.
I get home from work not long after she gets home from the dentist. She’s in a foul mood. Apparently, she had to skip lunch because there was a catastrophe with one of the hot water heaters in the east tower. Thanks to her fluoride application, she can’t eat anything for another hour.
Lucky me.
She drags me to Publix, a grocery run I’m hoping will bank me enough sister points to get me out of the next chore on her list. When I was a kid, before Tati moved to Boston, she’d bring me to the store for donuts and Dr Pepper and Cheetos.
Today, we fill the buggy by circling the perimeter.
She’s always going on about how the aisles are stocked with processed foods that are trash for our bodies.
She’s probably right. Still, I slip in Nutter Butters, a box of Lucky Charms, and a six-pack of Red Bull.
All in all, it’s an uneventful trip, until we’re on our way out.
Gabi’s on her way in with her mom and her twelve-year-old brother, Tyson.
I avoid eye contact like a boss, hoping they’ll go about their business.
They don’t, because Tati and her big-ass mouth call out hello.
Maggie grins and waves. She’s stunning, one of a few Black models to grace the pages of J.Crew catalogs back in the nineties. And she’s so nice. She gives Gabi a nudge like, Go say hi!
Tati has no idea that Gabi and I aren’t talking. Maggie must not either, because she cheerfully bags lemons while her daughter makes a slow shuffle toward us.
“Gabi, hi!” Tati says, pulling her into an embrace.
Despite our history of (innocent) troublemaking, she loves Gabi, who gets stellar grades and plays piano concertos for packed halls.
Tati has legit accused me of being a negative influence on my best friend.
Like I’m capable of forcing Gabi to do anything she doesn’t want to do.
Until the Damon incident, she was a willing conspirator in whatever mischief was on the docket.
When we were younger, that meant pranking my sister or sneaking out to toilet paper the houses of boys who’d left us jaded.
Later it became secret joyrides in Maggie’s BMW or wine guzzled behind my locked bedroom door.
Gabi’s gaze skims my newly darkened hair.
I hate myself for wondering if she likes it.
Maggie’s putting a bunch of bananas in her cart, and Tyson is poking avocados, looking bored.
He can be a pain sometimes, but he’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother.
And Maggie treats me more like a daughter than Tati ever has.
I want to run through the produce section and hug them both.
I resist because holy balls, Gabi looks like she’s about to breathe fire.
“I haven’t seen you since summer break started,” Tati says to her. “What’s been keeping you so busy?”
“Piano,” Gabi tells her. “Same as always.”
She’s been taking lessons since she was four and teaching them since last year.
When we were twelve, her dad used the word virtuoso after a recital at the Saenger Theatre in Pensacola, which earned an epic eye roll from his daughter.
Gabi never boasts about her talent. For her, playing is the same as breathing: instinctive and sustaining.
My sister smiles. “Next time you and Piper are at our place, be sure to say hello.”
How dense is she?
Gabi and I still haven’t acknowledged each other. How has Tati missed the disgust that’s thickened the air? And why hasn’t she asked me where Gabi’s been lately? She could have at any time. Instead, she’s chosen to interrogate my former best friend while our frozen whole-wheat waffles thaw.
“Oh, Piper and I don’t hang out anymore,” Gabi says.
If I could disappear through the floor, I would. At least then I wouldn’t have to watch my sister’s expression cloud with confusion.
She looks from Gabi to me, then back again. “I don’t understand.”
Try to keep up, Tati.
“We’re not friends anymore,” Gabi says flatly. “Piper didn’t tell you?”
My sister glowers. “No. She did not.”
“Okay,” I say, giving Tati a push toward the exit. “Let’s talk in the car.”
She moves reluctantly toward the automatic doors. Just a few more feet and—
“She kissed my boyfriend,” Gabi calls, halting Tati in her tracks.
Gabi’s not a timid girl, but she’s diplomatic. It’s not like her to cause a scene in the neighborhood market, but now that Maggie and Tyson have disappeared down the baking aisle, she’s dropped her shield and picked up a sword.
Tati walks back to her. “When?”
“A couple of weeks ago. At my house. In my room.”
My stomach churns. Hell would be preferable to this.
Tati sputters. “Why would she do that?”
“She was drunk,” Gabi says, like, Isn’t she always? “Damon said she was all over him.”
“Piper,” Tati chides, shaking her head.
I’m barely holding back a cascade of tears, but I can’t not speak up. “That isn’t what happened,” I say.
Gabi’s gaze clashes with mine. “You’re calling Damon a liar?”
“Yes,” I say, squaring up to her.
Gabi’s bullshit detector is well calibrated.
She values authenticity and despises deception, and she’s stubborn as hell.
But last year, she fell for Mitchel Damon, bad boy punk to her piano prodigy perfection.
He’s loud and vulgar, a redneck and an asshole.
Maggie and Byron hate him. But isn’t that the draw? He satiates Gabi’s defiant streak.
“What Damon told you? That is not how it went down.”
She crosses her arms. “Whatever, Piper.”
“It’s not. If you’d let me explain—”
Shaking her head, she says, “I don’t need your explanations—not this time. I saw you with him. I’ve never felt so betrayed—”
Enough!
I turn and walk out of Publix.
Gabi and I hit a rough spot a few months back, over spring break.
I missed her biggest recital of the season to hook up with a tourist whose name has already slipped my mind.
The fight was my fault; I selfishly put a boy before her and lied to cover my ass, telling her Tati wouldn’t let me go to the recital.
Tati shot holes through my story not two days later, and Gabi confronted me.
When I came clean, it was heart-wrenchingly obvious that she was more disappointed by my dishonesty than the fact that I’d missed the recital.
I swore I’d never do anything to make her doubt me again.
By the time she walked in on Damon and me at that party, I had already surrendered.
She’d missed my confusion, his maneuvering, my bartering, his hushing.
She didn’t hear me trying to plead my way out of that bedroom.
She didn’t see me grappling with him, someone who was quicker and stronger and much more sober than me.
She took his word over mine.
Why wouldn’t she? I’d lied before.
***
I’ve been waiting on the sweltering asphalt for almost ten minutes when Tati comes out of the supermarket, shoving the buggy with wrathful purpose. She loads the groceries into the trunk, not bothering to unlock the passenger door, ensuring that I’m cooked through by the time she’s done.
“How could you take her side?” I ask when we’re both in the Volvo. I jam my seat belt into its slot. My rage-fueled crying ran its course before she emerged from the store, but my indignation hasn’t gone anywhere.
“Well, Piper. Let’s review the night in question.
You drank illegally, and you left Gabi’s house alone in the middle of the night.
Adam found you wandering more than a mile down the beach, wasted.
He drove you home in his squad car—while on duty—and then, if you’ll recall, he broke up with me while you puked all over the bathroom, which I later had to clean.
Why would I take your side when you habitually make terrible choices? ”
God, is she right?
Am I to blame for what happened with Damon?
If I’d been more responsible, I might not have found myself alone with him.
If I hadn’t had so much to drink, he might not have singled me out.
I wasn’t in the right headspace to reason with him, to effectively say no, to fight him off.
There was little chance I’d be able to reliably recount what he did later, and he knew it.
Does responsibility lie with me or him?
Him.
Jayden and Hudson knew I was drunk. Jayden mixed most of my drinks, and Hudson helped me out of the pool. Neither of them lured me to a private room. Neither of them put their hands on me.
Damon is a predator.
So why is guilt whispering accusations in my ear?
Because I make terrible choices, like my sister said.
I wait for her to pull onto the main drag before I say, quietly, “I wish you wouldn’t assume I’m always at fault.”
“But you so often are! Do you need examples of your most foolish decisions? Let’s start with last year, when you drove my car without permission. Before you got your license.”
“I was with Gabi,” I counter, “who was a licensed driver. And we only drove in the parking lot of the Towers. She was teaching me how to parallel park!”
Tati thumps her hand against the steering wheel like a judge banging a gavel. “Illegal! What about sophomore year, when you were caught cheating on your history midterm?”
“I wasn’t cheating. I knew that study guide front and back.
” That semester, Jayden was in danger of failing U.S.
history, which was going to get him booted from the wrestling team.
I’d only wanted to help him secure a C, a grade just good enough to keep him on the mat.
I positioned my paper so he could sneak a peek or two.
In retrospect, I probably should’ve kept my answers to myself.
Jayden and I both got zeros on that test, and he didn’t get to wrestle for the rest of the season.
“I was trying to help a friend,” I tell Tati, my voice small.
“You were cheating.”
The way she spits out that word makes me sound like a delinquent, not a girl trying to boost a buddy.
“Let’s get back to what happened last month at Gabi’s,” she continues.
“You kissed your best friend’s boyfriend, which is so unbelievably wrong I can’t even wrap my head around it.
Then you came home drunk at seventeen. It’s one thing to screw up every once in a while, but I wish that just once, you’d take responsibility for the mistakes you make. ”
“I don’t need to! You’re always around to throw them in my face.”
She pffts, like I’m so ridiculous. “You destroyed your best friendship—your only friendship. Do you honestly feel good about that?”
“If you want the truth, I haven’t felt good for a long time. You have no idea what happened between Damon and me, but instead of asking, instead of checking in to make sure I’m okay, you’re taking Gabi’s story at face value. You’re taking her side over mine.”
“Okay.” Tati flips on her turn signal. The Towers and salvation are in sight. “Why did Gabi walk in on you with her boyfriend?”
I could tell my sister everything. Yes, I stole her booze and lied about where I was going. I got bombed and dove into the pool half naked for the pure exhibitionist fun of it. Stupid, stupid, stupid choices. But being with Damon?
Not a choice.
How can I describe those moments I spent with him?
His cold hands.
My tunneling vision.
His stale breath.
My dry heaves.
His sharp words.
My terror.
I can’t.
All I see is the look Tati wore that night after Officer Lopez—Adam—hauled me into his cruiser and drove me home.
After he told her I was lucky he’d brought me to her instead of to the station.
After he told her things were over between them, that he couldn’t be with a woman whose “ward” was a budding criminal.
She was devastated.
But she bounced back real quick, getting down and dirty with Davis Walker.
As she pulls into her spot at the Towers, her expression is one of superiority; she doesn’t look like a big sister who will stand by me.
Still, she says, “Tell me. What happened that night?”
She doesn’t want the truth. She wants to be right.
And I can be as heartless as she is.
“I kissed him,” I tell her. “Just like Gabi said.”