Reconcile by Nicole Dykes

Eighteen years old

“Piper!”I call out after Piper, but she’s gone. I lift Paisley off me, and she glares at me with her bloodshot eyes.

She’d been crying when I ran into her at the party tonight. Why, I have no idea. I didn’t really ask. I just drank myself into oblivion and watched as she did the same.

“Fuck.” I sit on the edge of the bed as she pulls her dress on over her head.

“Why are you so upset? That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

She grabs my phone off the bed, and I remember the picture she took with her straddling me. Both of us naked, although that’s as far as we got. “What are you doing?”

She lifts her shoulder, looking pretty damn out of it. “Don’t worry about it. She hates you now.” She tosses my phone on the bed next to me. I find the pic and quickly delete it.

I don’t want to hurt Piper any more than I already have. I never meant for her to walk in and see it for herself. Never. I thought maybe her sister would blab to someone, but I didn’t want Piper to witness it.

I scrub a hand over my face, feeling sick from the alcohol, but mostly from the look on Piper’s face. She looked so broken.

I told Paisley everything. About Spencer. About my father. And about not being good enough for Piper. About wanting to protect her from me. Pushing her away. And then she kissed me and stripped naked, agreeing I wasn’t good enough for her sister.

Everything got out of control so fucking fast.

“Don’t you care that we just destroyed Piper?”

Paisley has a hint of human in her, revealing it briefly, but then she schools her features. “You’re right about my sister. She deserves better than a Ross.”

Pain hits me in my gut, and I feel like I might throw up. “What a good sister.”

She walks to the door, tossing me an evil look over her shoulder. “We all do what we have to in order to survive in this cruel world we were born into.”

I look away from her, and she leaves.

I lay back on the bed, the room spinning.

What the fuck did I just do?