And Then, It Was Broken

Piper was keeping her eyes down, fork idly mixing her mashed potatoes and corn together on her lunch tray. The last few days she had seemed quieter than usual, concerning me. I generally didn’t ask her about what was wrong; she always came to me when she decided she was ready to talk. It was awkward now though, with the triangle we were all in.

Micah was sitting next to me, both of us across from Piper. He as sitting closer than I was used to from him, but it had been happening for weeks now. Piper liked Micah, I knew that, and I would have loved to see them together. Their personalities were vastly different, with Micah far more outgoing and just loud, but they balanced each other out perfectly. I’d tried hard to set them up only to find out that Micah had been trying to hint at how much he wanted us/i] to go out together. I didn’t feel that way, at all, but ti had still put us all in an odd situation.

Piper wouldn’t come to me anymore when she had issues with Micah, or just wanted to vent about how much she liked him and that he didn’t even care. I didn’t like that she was becoming so distant from Micah and me, pulling away and into herself. She wasn’t eating as much anymore, avoiding both of us at lunch in favor of staying in the library or doing homework. The memory of her, thin and frail, lying in a mental hospital after she’d collapsed during class, still haunted me. I hated that I hadn’t noticed how thin she had gotten, how much she had changed, while I was preoccupied with my own life.

Glancing briefly over at Micah I saw the same concern written on his face as he watched our best friend. She looked exhausted, dark circles under her normally honey eyes. Micah’s hand landing on my knee almost made me jump but I shoved aside my reaciton, glancing at him. I was ready to snap at him, irritated that I was concerned with Piper and he didn’t seem to care as much as I thought he should, until I saw the descrete nod he gave me. You or me?, he was asking. I sighed, resigned, and he gave me a small, supportive smile.

“You ready to yell at me now?” Piper demanded as soon as I looked up and met her eyes. I knew my own surprise was obvious at the venom in her tone. “What? You think I don’t notice both of you and your secret little exchanges? Which one is going to bring it up, huh? Which one gets to remind me of my biggest mistake?”

“We-I didn’t… That isn’t how we meant it Piper. You just seem so tired and I didn’t notice last time, I was too-“

“Exactly, and now you just want to make it up to yourself, so you can keep yourelf from feeling so guilty. Don’t try and feed me some shit about how worried you are, or how much you care. You’re doing this for you!” Her eyes were wide with fury, glaring at me with such disdain that I didn’t’ even know how to respond. I could only see how small her wrists and her waist were as she stood up, gripping the tray. Her body was so thin, bird-like, because despite recovering, she had never been able to gain much weight back afterwards. She looked so fragile despite her fury and, when I looked closer, I realized that there were tears in her eyes too.

“Piper we love you,” Micah spoke up, seeming to be the only one not stunned by her outburtst, Piper included. “We care about you. This isn’t about trying to make ourselves feel better about freshman year. It’s about us wanting to make sure you’re ok.” Micah sounded so earnest as he spoke, and he stood up to be at Piper’s level. “Don’t do this Piper.”

“Do what Micah? Be honest? Just because you’re so in love with Rowan that you’d rather him be lied to than hurt doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend to think he gives a shit.” She turned around, tray in hand, and stormed away. I tried to run after her, catching her shoulder gently, just enough to hopefully make her stop, but she spun on her heel, eyes practically flashing with anger.

“Don’t Rowan, ok? Just don’t. I know you’ve been holding onto this friendship because it’s all you have left after Erin ditched us but get over it. We’re too different now.” Piper yanked her shoulder from under my hand and walked out of the cafeteria, stopping only to throw out her uneaten lunch. More than hoping she was just angry, that she’d come back tomorrow and say she was wrong, that we were still friends, I could only hope she wasn’t regressing. She pulled away then too, knowing it would be easier to hide if we weren’t friends anymore, but I had been too distracted to save our friendship. Now, I didn’t know if saving it was even an option.

Lost and unsure of what to do I walked back to the lunch table, planning on grabbing my stuff and convincing Micah to skip the rest of the day with me. I grabbed my bag but before I could speak he gave me an embarrassed, resigned smile, and just walked out of the cafeteria, taking the same path that Piper just had.