Altered

by Kimberly Montague

  "Certainly! Life of the party, we are," she said.

  "Well you’re both certainly the experts now aren’t you?" Devlin asked smugly.

  "And what do you mean by that?” I questioned him while poking him in the chest. He had a really solid chest.

  He had that cocky grin on his face. "If I’m his man-crush, Sonya here must be his true crush."

  Sonya’s mouth dropped open as he said this, and I was certain she was going to haul off and hit him, but Gary chose that precise moment to walk in and distract her. I just smiled indulgently at her. Devlin had hit the nail on the head in terms of their feelings toward each other. They were both just trying so hard to continue denying it.

  "Hello beautiful ladies." Gary climbed up on a desk beside Sonya. "Have I missed anything yet?"

  "They haven’t started the meeting yet, if that’s what you’re asking," Sonya replied dryly.

  "Hey Gary," Devlin smacked Gary in the arm. "I need another huge favor."

  "Shoot man."

  "Sonya here says I can’t come to Evie’s party tonight unless I’m your date. Will you—"

  Sonya’s eyes widened and her voice pitched higher. "Holy crap, Devlin, I was just kidding."

  "So I can come alone? Great what time is it tonight, Gary?"

  Gary laughed. "7 p.m. at Sonya’s."

  Both Sonya and I stared at each other wide-eyed as Devlin managed to gain a whole party invite right under our noses in less than thirty seconds.

  "Cool, thanks." And with that, he left my side and went up to the front of the room, his voice booming. "Alright kids, let’s quiet down. I’m the only one allowed to talk over our President, right Tony?"

  Tony laughed and talked about Winter Festival, which was still a month and a half away, but they insisted we really needed to start practicing for the skit portion of the events. Devlin wandered around the room making funny comments and generally being the class clown. When they asked everyone to talk out some ideas with those around them, he wound up back on the desk next to me.

  "I think we should go with Togas," Gary said confidently.

  Sonya shoved him. "Gary, you’ve suggested that for every single thing we’ve ever done. Don’t you think you could come up with a more original idea?"

  Devlin stared intently at me. "I don’t know, I think the toga idea has merit. The Greeks were very intelligent. You know, they are our ancestors, we should pay tribute to that."

  Narrowing my eyes, I tried to figure out where he was going with this because it didn't seem like an answer he would give in public.

  He winked at me and continued, "I mean really, girls in white sheets, it just screams wet toga contest. Pure genius civilization there."

  Gary gave him a high-five and an "oh yeah," while Sonya rolled her eyes exaggeratedly. I felt the comment earned him a punch in the arm. Unfortunately, I think it hurt my hand more than it hurt him.

  "You gotta be careful when you come to the gun show, baby. These weapons can be dangerous." Despite his teasing, he pulled my hand in between his, massaging it gently.

  "Gun show, please," I huffed. "I’ve seen bigger muscles on Gary’s Chihuahua."

  "Now that’s a Chihuahua I have to see. That thing must be ripped." He had massaged the sting out of my hand, but kept hold of it, bringing back that familiar tension we seemed to create. "Come on, admit it. I’m the best built guy you’ve ever seen."

  "Well there’s one thing that’s certainly quite big," I said with mock admiration, leaning closer to him to stroke his arm. "Bigger than most I’ve seen, and I’ve seen some big ones." He was practically drooling.

  "What’s that?" he asked, staring at my lips.

  "Your ego." Laughing, he shoved me gently into Sonya and went back to working the crowd. He was so comfortable with everyone, and I was really envious of that. He was standing with the really popular kids, the ones that always seemed to control everything, which of course, he was part of.

  The best idea Sonya, Gary, and I could come up with was a Bourne movie montage, but no one else agreed with it. The rest of the meeting was uneventful, especially since the only thing that got decided was that we needed to have another meeting. Most of the people at the meeting were also in Leadership with Mr. Berg, so we walked as a herd to class together.

  I had somehow managed to forget about Jay during lunch, so it was like a shock to my system to walk in and find him watching me from our usual seat. It took me a moment to get myself to move in his direction again. Dread would be an understatement for how I felt about another confrontation with Jay, but it wasn’t as if I could avoid him.

  As I tossed my backpack down, he stood up and grabbed my hand. "We need to talk before class starts." He pulled me out of class, and I did my best to avoid connecting my gaze with Devlin’s although I could still feel his eyes on me.

  Outside, Jay pulled me around the corner to the vending machines, forcing memories into my mind of kissing Devlin the day before. We sat down on the bench, and he placed his hand on my knee. I had the extreme urge to jerk my knee away from him, but I resisted.

  "Look, Piper. I know things haven’t been perfect between us, and I don’t really understand why you got so angry this morning, but I know this can work if you want it to. Do you—want it to?"

  His insecurity tore at my heart, and I was back to feeling guilty. Standing up, I started pacing in front of the bench. It doesn’t seem to matter how much you don’t want to hurt someone, sometimes there’s just no way around it.

  "Jay, we’ve been together since I was ten, and I’ve loved you ever since then. I always will love you. You’re one of my best friends, and you’ve been there for me through everything. I just…" I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. "I’m not happy. I—"

  "You want to break up." It sounded more like a statement than a question—a very sad statement.

  I stared at my hands and spoke as gently as I could. "It seems like there’s never been a time that I haven’t been Piper and Jay. Don’t you ever wonder if what we have is truly meant to be? Don’t you ever think maybe there’s something more than, than—"

  "Us?" he finished, staring down at the ground. "No. I love you. I’ve never thought there was anything better."

  I looked at him skeptically. Raising my eyebrows at him, I argued, "You’re lying." He shook his head at my accusation. "I’ve seen you, Jay. I’ve seen you watch your parents or your aunt and uncle. I’ve seen you watching them together, how they’re drawn to each other. It’s more than just a strong friendship. There’s—there’s passion. I know you’ve seen it."

  I was prepared for him to deny it, but I knew his silence meant he wasn’t going to. He clearly wasn’t going to admit it, but he didn’t deny it either.

  He stood up suddenly, running his hand through his hair and looking grimacing. "So that’s it? You’re just gonna throw away seven years? How can you do that for some silly romantic idea?"

  "Are you saying the past seven years have all been about you and me romantically? Haven’t we been friends too? If we can’t be friends, then our relationship certainly wasn’t what we thought it was. Are you saying we can’t be friends?"

  "I don’t know, Piper. I think it’ll be too hard."

  That made me mad. "Too hard? Are you serious?"

  "Yeah. It shouldn’t be this hard. It should be effortless."

  I wanted to throw something at him for saying that. This was the spoiled little boy who always got everything he wanted. I wanted to smack him for his easy life. "Whatever, Jay, I’m no stranger to a little struggle, but clearly you are. If it’s asking too much of you, just forget it." Perhaps I wasn’t being fair, I had just sprung this breakup on him, and here I was expecting him to accept friendship at the drop of a hat. I sat back down on the bench and pulled him down to sit next to me again. "Jay, when’s the last time we really kissed? I don’t mean a peck here and there. I mean like a real, can’t get enough of you kiss?"

  "I don’t know," he answered quickly, clearly frustrat
ed. "What does it matter?"

  "No, really, Jay, just think about it for a moment."

  He looked at me condescendingly for a moment then back down at his hands. It didn't seem like he was going to answer when he quietly said, "My parent’s anniversary… last year."

  "See? Look how long it’s been. We’ve been more friends than anything else for a while now. The only thing that’s really changing is our label."

  He nodded slowly, and I could tell I had gotten through to him. He at least saw my point and would perhaps agree once he gave it some time.

  I placed my hand on his. "Just, please think about it. Take some time and think about it. I don’t want to lose you, but honestly Jay, I feel like we broke up a year ago and we’ve just been hanging on out of fear." I stood up, kissed him on the top of his head, and walked back to class staring sadly at the ground the whole way there.

  Mr. Berg's voice was loud as I walked in. "Piper, nice of you to join…" He walked over to me and touched my shoulder.

  I turned to him and managed not to cry, but I could feel the tears gathering in my eyes.

  He whispered to me kindly, "Are you okay Piper?"

  "Jay—we just broke up. He’s outside still. Don’t—he, um, he might need a minute."

  "I’m sorry, sweetie." He patted my upper arm sincerely.

  I walked quickly to Sonya and Gary before my tears overtook my willpower not to cry. Sonya took my hand and came over to sit on the other side of me. Thankfully, we spent the class period hanging up posters for the upcoming dance, which meant that I could avoid both Jay and Devlin for the rest of class. In PE, we were running the mile, so again, I was able to avoid Devlin and live in my own sadness.

  Moving In

  That afternoon was chaotic. Between moving boxes into Sonya’s storage shed and putting away my things in my new room, I barely had time to cry about breaking up with Jay. I couldn’t really say I was heartbroken or even all that upset about not being romantic with him anymore since we hadn’t been in such a long time. But I was definitely upset about hurting him and about the possibility that he may not want to be friends with me anymore. He had been in my daily life for so many years, the idea of not talking to him every day was more than a little staggering.

  When I finally started unpacking my clothes, I opened my closet to find some already hanging there. Without even looking at them, I walked down the hallway to the kitchen where Sonya’s mom was preparing food for the little party tonight. Butcher, my ever-present shadow, followed me, shoving his head under my hand.

  "Hey, Evelyn, what do you want me to do with the clothes in the closet?" It suddenly dawned on me that they might belong to Nana. Perhaps Evelyn was still too upset to part with them? "I mean, I don’t have to do anything with them. I don’t need much space. I only have a few things anyhow if you wanted to leave them there."

  She laughed and walked over to pat my cheek. "Honey, those are for you."

  I was confused. "Wha—" Was she giving me her mother’s clothes?

  She laughed again, full and loud. "Sonya and I decided you needed more clothes. Since we knew you’d say no, we just went ahead and bought several things we thought you'd like."

  It was too generous on top of the generosity they were already showing me by letting me stay there. I started shaking my head, but she put her hand up, stalling my head movements.

  "I already yanked off the tags, so either you take them or they’ll get donated to charity. Besides, I had fun buying them for you. Sonya’s never liked dresses and skirts and girlie, feminine things even though I always wanted to buy them for her."

  She stepped closer and put her arm around me. It reminded me of something my mom would have done and made my heart ache for her. It was comforting however, to know that she’d be very happy to see Evelyn taking care of me. They’d always been such good friends.

  She squeezed my shoulders. "It’s nice to have a daughter I can do that for. Now, make me happy and go put on a dress instead of those old, faded jeans you've been stuck wearing."

  I wrapped my arms around her, feeling at peace for the first time since Harm had gone back to the base. "Thank you, Evelyn, for everything."

  "You’re entirely welcome, honey." Her hugs were always strong, making sure you knew she’d meant it. "Now scoot, I’ve got more preparing to do."

  I looked at the ridiculous pile of vegetables she was chopping. "You know it’s just us and Gary, right? You’re not feeding an army."

  She laughed again as she returned to chopping jalapenos. "Are you kidding? You kids are an army with the way you eat! Besides—" She turned her I-know-everything glance on me. "That boy you’re falling for is coming too, isn’t he? Devlin?"

  Thank goodness the floor was clean because I swear my jaw hit the ground. Falling for? Was I falling for him?

  Her booming laughter brought me back to where I was. "Come on, I’ve been in the mom business far too long not to have found out that big piece of juicy gossip. But you’re saved—I have too much to do to interrogate you right now. If you keep standing here though, I’ll happily launch into a game of twenty questions all about him."

  "Going," I said scrambling through the kitchen doorway, making Butcher follow me in concern. "I’m going—gone actually—I’m completely gone," I yelled as I rushed down the hallway toward the den.

  I poked my head into the room to find Gabriel bouncing in his chair, and rubbing his chin in thought. "Hey Gabriel? I don't want to bug you, but I just wanted to thank you for the new clothes."

  He must not have noticed me poke my head in because he nearly jumped but recovered quickly. "Piper, you're not bugging me. Come on in here."

  As I stepped closer, I noticed he had information on the screen about Independence. I hadn't been paying much attention to current events in that area and once again felt a little too self-absorbed.

  "You know kiddo, I said to myself, my girls really need some more appropriate clothing. So I went out to the mall and got you some fine blouses with collars up to here." He pointed to just beneath his chin, and I laughed in response. "And long skirts that touched the floor. You know— stylish things, but Evelyn took it all back and bought you those boring things. Oh well, I tried to get you wearing the latest fashions."

  I smiled in appreciation not only of the new clothes, but of who Gabriel was. He always knew what to say to put me at ease, and that meant so much to me. "Well, I appreciate the thought."

  "Anytime, sweetheart." His eyes wandered back to the computer screen.

  "Is there new info about Independence?"

  "Hey now, you're supposed to be having fun and thinking about stupid things, not worrying about some conspiracy."

  "So it really is a conspiracy?"

  He stared at me appraisingly for a few moments before rolling his eyes. "Darn intelligent, literate, current events watching kids. What is wrong with our education system these days? I thought they were teaching video games 101 or vapid and shallow gossiping skills, not useless things like critical thinking." He was clicking through pages again as his sarcastic little speech concluded. "I'm going to have to have a chat with your principal."

  The article he brought up read, "Whole Town in the Sierra Nevada Mountains Quarantined Due to Infectious Spread of E Coli bacteria."

  I reread the headline in confusion. "Quarantined? E Coli? What are they talking about?"

  "Well now, that's what everyone is debating about. Some think there isn't an infectious illness at all. Some think that the real illness has caused so many deaths that they had to use something well-known and destructive in order to pull off a cover-up."

  "What do you believe?"

  He bounced in his chair for a few moments. "I'm not sure. I think I need to research more, and don't you have a date to get ready for."

  I chewed on my bottom lip nervously. "It's not a date. He's just coming over to hang out and study."

  He cleared his throat. "You forgot the air-quotes on the words study." He turned back to the com
puter closing the windows and shutting it down. "You know I'll have to meet him, right?"

  I rolled my eyes dramatically. There were times when I thought that Gabriel was more protective than my own father. "You're not gonna embarrass me, are you?"

  "Now, honey," he said slowly as if he were explaining the meaning of life to a child. "You know perfectly well that it's my job in life to embarrass you and Sonya as often as I possibly can. You don't want me to get kicked out of the parents' club, do you?"

  I threw my head back and sighed exasperatedly at the ceiling. "Well I'm gonna go change. I'm sure you have some planning to do for how to make me look like a total dork."

  "Oh, now you don't have to worry about that. I'm not gonna make you look foolish. I'm just gonna go grab my shotgun and give it a nice polish for its close-up."

  "Oh, geez! Please try to behave yourself."

  He nodded vaguely and waved me off. It was nice to still have a father-figure around and Gabriel had been taking on that role more and more as each day passed.

  It took Sonya and me twenty minutes to play fashion show with my new clothes and decide upon a soft blue dress that buttoned up the front with short sleeves and a lacy tank top underneath. Just as I was slipping on a pair of sandals, Butcher started barking. I was about to tell him to stop when the doorbell rang.

  "He’s here," both Sonya and I said at the same time, leaving me to wonder why we both had excitement in our voices. If I didn’t know better, I’d say Sonya was finding it difficult to hide her feelings for Gary. Before my mind could truly latch on to the idea, Sonya was pulling me out of my bedroom and down the hallway to the front door.

  As Gabriel opened the door, the small glimpse of Devlin’s face on the porch sent my heart into a little rendition from "Glee." It took Devlin two steps inside before Butcher was all over him sniffing him and licking his hand.

  "Well, Butchie sure likes you." Evelyn laughed before sobering up to scold, "Butcher, sit!" Obediently, Butcher sat down and practically wagged his whole back side in excitement over Devlin’s presence. "You must have made some impression on him."