Never Plan Your Ex's Wedding / / Pipabeth NOMINATED FOR PJO_WATTY AWARD GO VOTE

Never Plan Your Ex's Wedding: Chapter Nine

I bolt upright and Piper jumps from the sudden movement.

"I might propose." I hear her words echoing in my head. "I'd just be too afraid of getting hurt."

Suddenly I don't want to hold it in again. I don't want to rattle off some stupid excuse about how it was a mutual breakup. How we just "didn't feel it anymore."

"I proposed," I burst out. I feel a big ball of upset in my stomach. Blasting me back to the past. I barely feel the relief of finally admitting it.

"What?" she asks. She's sitting up now, alert, staring me right in the eyes with a hand on my arm.

"I proposed!" My throat is closed up and I can hear the squeaky voice that comes from crying. I can already feel the tears turning my eyes glassy and then I feel a hot line of water stream down my face.

"Don't cry," she wiped my tears off with her thumb. "Your eyes will freeze shut." I might've laughed had I not already been launched into emotional turmoil.

"I proposed and she asked for a minute outside. She left-" I pause to let a strangled sound come out. "And then didn't come back. I stayed up all night waiting until I passed out on the couch." Another weird squeak. My voice is barely above a whisper. "When I woke up in the morning I went to Percy's. He lived with my friend Grover. When I came back..." I let out a tremendous sob. "When I came back her stuff was gone." I barely get the last word out.

I bury my face in my hands and I sit like that and I let it out a little bit. I feel awful for doing this to Piper. I tell her so but she shuts me up immediately saying that I'm ridiculous, she'd always be there for me if I needed it. And that may have been a heavy line, especially for being friends for only a month, but I think we both knew on that first night that this was forever.

Once I calmed down I went on. "I called her a million times. She didn't pick up, I phoned her work and she wasn't there. I called up every one of our friends, no one had seen her. I called her sisters and her sister picked up. It picked up and before she could even say "Hello," it was hung up. I tried calling back but no one would pick up. So I borrowed Percy's step dad's car and booted it to Long Island. When I got there Hylla, her sister, opened the door and stepped outside with me. She basically explained that she knew nothing, Reyna was okay, but she was going to call me when she was ready to call me. She seemed really apologetic and I was so not expecting... any of this. So I left."

I glance at her and she's paying attention. Really paying attention, her multicoloured eyes are trained on me.

"It was three weeks later when she finally came and talked to me. I still don't believe she did it entirely of her own will. She came in and said she couldn't do it anymore and I deserved better and she didn't realize it was getting to this. The regular kind of thing. I was still so much in shock that I didn't ask the question, the one single thought that I had the moment I saw her face again. Why did you wait so long? I had been all ready if she had wanted to break up, to try to convince her to get back together again. To tell her to hold on, she couldn't just let go when she got scared. But I didn't. I didn't say a word of that. I nodded, and she left. I got news that she was dating Jason three months later."

Piper is still looking at me and I'm realizing what's so notable about it. She's not looking at me with pity. It's another look one I can't quite explain. It's like she's just learning a fact about me, as if I said I liked the colour green.