TEETH [chris sturniolo]

20.

Matt was waiting for them when Piper and Chris walked out of detention. She realized right then that tomorrow, the triplets' parents would probably kick her out.

Who wouldn't? She's practically a stranger, a classmate whose only relationship to the triplets was getting Chris in trouble at school. She swallowed hard and stayed quiet the whole ride.

Chris was silent too, what was he thinking?

Her stomach was in knots, her mind scrambled to find an answer to the soul-crushing feeling that pressed her chest.

Back when they were in detention, Mr. Gómez had left them alone for the whole hour. Leaving Chris, Piper and two other boys to simply sit in silence. So when the teacher was gone, Chris turned to her and started talking in a hurried tone.

"I was dumb. Nate and I were... fuck, this sounds so bad— we were trying to see how long we could play two girls before either of them found out" he explained, looking embarrassed at least. "He won, by the way. It was stupid and I felt bad, I tried to apologize... Kylie actually slapped me and told me to fuck off but, um, Bella thought it was romantic that I apologized or some shit."

"Why are you telling me this? I didn't ask for an explanation."

"I could tell you were still mad at me" he told her. "I just don't understand why."

She was about to tell him off but paused instead. Piper asked herself the same question. Why was she mad? Was she angry for them? Or jealous that there were other girls before her?

Her brain fixated on the "other girls before her". How many? She knew about Julia, Kylie and Bella, but what about girls from other schools? Girls he could have met on away games? Tournaments?

Girls with mothers who weren't junkies whose boyfriends beat their daughters. Have those girls ever had to remove a needle from someone's forearm? Have they ever spent nights making sure their mothers didn't choke on their vomit?

Piper didn't think so. And if one of them related to her in the slightest, then her heart went out to them.

"Cruz?"

"Stop calling me that" she said harshly. Her tone so cold the two other boys looked up from their notebooks. "Mind your business" she spat.

"Hey" Chris frowned. "What the fuck crawled up your ass?"

She took a deep breath and ignored him.

"Cruz."

Nothing.

"Piper?" He scooted closer to her and spoke in a soft voice. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know" she admitted.

Chris wasn't expecting that because he didn't said anything after that. Lost in thought, or mad, Piper didn't know, he leaned back and ignored her for the rest of detention.