Keeping Up With Piper

by Amanda Adair

  “I’m not kidding, it’s me,” I say with a more serious tone. “And I remember what you’ve done to me.”

  I’m not here to joke around. We’ve had some fun time, you got to know Blair who’s all fun and cool. Now it’s time for you to meet Samantha, who’s full of anger.

  “You remember shit. Why are you following me? Are you obsessed or something?” Now you sound petty. “Never thought somebody like you would make it to New York. Even Maywood’s too good for you. Do you miss your mommy?”

  You come closer to me. You have that attitude as you had back in Maywood. Immediately I feel weak and angry and sad at the same time. So many feelings at the same time. Negative feelings, of course. What else. Now that you know I am Samantha I feel like her. I feel weak and vulnerable again.

  Suddenly you start whispering into my ear.

  “What?,” I say and step back.

  “They never found out,” you say, obviously still drunk.

  I’m trying to figure out if you’re telling the truth. I’m trying to find a hint in your facial expression.

  “I’m not sorry,” you say. “She was as…”

  You can’t finish the sentence because I grab your hair and then I push you, again and again. You’re too dizzy to walk backwards, so you stumble. You scream but I can’t hear you. It’s all silent around me. You step back and lose your balance. You fall down the building. I watch you fall. I hear a dull sound when your body reaches the ground. A second ago you stood in front of me. Now all I see is the night sky covered with stars. At first I’m shocked. My instincts tell me to call someone. But it’s too late. You’re dead. It was an accident. It really was.

  “Bye,” I say and walk away. I’m smiling every minute, every second of my way back to my apartment, back to Kye. I leave the crime scene. Nobody will ever find out I was here. Your body probably won’t be discovered until noon. On this side of the building there’s no street. It’s a backyard with lots of trash containers. In the darkness of the night your body remains invisible.

  I hear your words once again, like an echo in my head. “I was the one driving,” you told me, “but because I didn’t want to lose my license our Frenchie Francine and I changed seats. She was almost dead. She wasn’t breathing. There was a lot of blood on her. Why shouldn’t she be blamed for killing someone. I was just a drunk teenager. I had a life to live. I regret nothing.”

  52

  Two weeks ago, MWG sent me the waving hand emoji. That’s our code for it’s done. I couldn’t send him anything because my mission wasn’t completed. It is now. You’re dead. I don’t know if we can live with having killed someone. We’re murderers. What was it like, Piper, to know that you’ve killed a human being? Not just my lovely mother but her daughter Samantha Goldinger. She was doomed to die on the inside the minute she met you. I hope Dana can forgive me for killing her mom. I don’t want her to be as enraged as me. All they know is that it was an accident. You were drunk and fell of the building. What a tragedy.

  MWG. Maywood Guy. I wasn’t the only one who suffered from Maywood High’s torture. He didn’t want to take revenge on you, Piper. The male version of you, Axel, died two weeks ago. He officially died from a heart attack, which is, of course, not really true. We didn’t talk about our plans in detail. I don’t want to know how he managed to kill Axel. I just know that after I got the waving hand emoji he flew back to Japan, where he works as a model and chemist. He has a beautiful girlfriend, Ena. There are many things I didn’t know about Bran. When I moved to Maywood most of his torture was over. Axel beat him up many times. Jason helped him, Elliot helped him, even you, Piper, helped him. And those who didn’t help him beat Bran up almost always looked away and ignored his pain. I don’t want to think about what they had done to him. He told me about his most terrible experience, and I have nightmares ever since. And I’m glad I. don’t have to take care of Axel. Thank you, Bran. I found Bran on social media, but he then deleted his account. We’re analog and hard to track. With all the fame and money social media brings along, we tend to forget what anonymity does for us. Since I tasted anonymity I want to stay invisible.

  I stand in front of the mirror in my new apartment far away from Maywood, far away from Brooklyn, even far away from the States. I tun my fingers through my copper red curls. Bye Blair, bye blonde long bob, bye concealer that covered up my freckles, bye Blair. Once again I killed someone. Blair Morgan. Project manager at lalamilan. Annoying rich brat and cosmopolitan. Swears way too often. Doesn’t give a shit about rules and norms. She’s dead, and I’m a serial killer. I have to thank Blair for all that she’s done for me. Thanks to her I can live. I still feel the pain from my past. But I will heal. I promise.

  I breathe out.

  All that time I wasn’t able to breathe. Like a fish on the shore I couldn’t breathe for such a long time. I couldn’t breathe since Mom died, I couldn’t breathe since moving to Maywood, I couldn’t breathe since the moment I met Piper and her stepdad. Now I can finally let go. I can let go of Blair Morgan, of Samantha Goldinger. You can call me Anne. I go by my middle name now.

  I look outside the window. Kye is standing next to the palm trees.

  “Mommy,” he calls for me.

  He wants to swim in the pool. I told him he’s not allowed to do so on his own. I take off my dress. The silver bikini sparkles in the sunshine. I help Kye jump into the water. I hold onto his shoulders. His back is turned towards me, so I can’t see his face. I want to push him down. Underwater. That was my plan. To drown him and say it was an accident. I start pushing but when his shoulders are underwater I stop. I can’t. This is wrong. Tears roll down my cheeks, and I hug him from behind. I hug him for several minutes. I know he’s not fully mine. He is a child conceived from rape. He doesn’t have a father. Not anymore. He’d dead. He deserves to be dead. But Kye hasn’t done anything bad. Not yet. And I’m making sure he won’t. I’m his mother even though I never wanted to be the mother of Sander Maas’ child. I never wanted to be a victim of rape or a pregnant teenager. I never wanted any of this. Kye is innocent. He shouldn’t have been born. But I shouldn’t have become a murderer. Certain things just happen. It’s a coincidence.

  acknowledgments

  I’d like to thank everyone who’s been supporting me as a a person in general, as a family member, friend, colleague and writer.

  I couldn’t be more grateful to able to do what I love most, which was, is and will be writing.

  about the author

  Amanda Adair studies English literature and international relations. The inspiration for all of her stories comes from travelling the world, from Hawai’i to Brazil, from psychology lectures and afternoons spend at coffee shops and libraries.

  Wattpad /adairamanda

  Instagram @itsamandaadair

  For inquiries, love letters and feedback:

  amandaadairauthor@icloud.com

  copyright

  KEEPING UP WITH PIPER. Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Adair

  Cover design by Amanda Adair