I first met Piper in late 2003. Of course, I had no idea who she was at the time seeing as though I was merely in Michigan on business. She seemed incredibly shy, almost withdrawn, but I could sense that there was more to her than meets the eye.
She wasn’t the prettiest of women, but she was definitely striking. It was probably the combination of the straight redish-brown hair and the piercing green eyes that caught most men’s attention. I think what made me notice her was her quiet determination and the passion that she exuded whenever she put the camera to her face.
She was seventeen then, a senior in high school and I was just about to turn twenty-six, so besides a first look, I didn’t really pay her much attention. She was slipping in and out of the party I was at, taking pictures with some fancy camera. I learned later that she had been taking pictures for her school newspaper, something she was deeply involved with.
Yet my first good impression of her, when Justin introduced us, was that she was some quiet teenager who clung to him like a leech. Good thing first impressions aren’t everything. Piper sure proved that fact to me.
But I’m jumping ahead of myself here. I’m sure you’d like to know what Piper was up to before she met Justin.
November, 2004
Piper Saunders sighed as she stretched her back. It was starting to become stiff from being in the same position for so long. Whoever had said college was easy must not have gone, for she was up to her eyeballs in homework.
It sucked to be a freshman. After coming from a small high school and a small town, Michigan State University’s campus seemed huge. And that was definitely no lie. With almost 50,000 students, Piper found that she was easily lost amid the crowds of nameless faces.
That was a problem for her. Piper had always had trouble making friends, due mainly to the fact that she was quite self-conscious about herself, so she was lost on campus. She was still trying to find her niche in the college community.
Of course, she had her photography. It had been her passion ever since she had been allowed to touch a camera, so it only seemed natural to pursue a degree in that field. The only hitch was that she couldn’t afford to go to one of those fancy schools for the arts. So she was stuck taking photojournalism classes at MSU, trying desperately to save enough money to transfer to the Tisch School of the Arts in New York, a prestigious school for photography.
But she was dreaming. Tuition was almost $50,000 a year and they were highly selective. Even though she had been told numerous times that she had extreme talent when it came to photography, she was still uncertain. Why would they accept her application, a nobody from nowheresville, USA?
There was also the fact that she would be moving out of her home state, away from her family and friends, and away from everything she had ever known. That scared her to death. After all, her love for photography only took her so far.
Without human interaction, Piper couldn’t survive. She loved being around people almost as much as she liked taking pictures of them. Her only problem was that she was shy and easily got tongue-tied around strangers. She was having a hard enough time at MSU, heading to a different school in another state was a different matter entirely.
But she desperately wanted to go to Tisch, despite all the trepidations she was having at the moment. She had visited the website a countless number of times and even looked over the application a time or two. But she never had the guts to print one off. That would be making it all a reality, and so far, it was still in the back of her mind like a dream.
There was also the fact that her parents would never approve. Especially her mom. She and her mom were incredibly close, almost like sisters, and Regina Saunders was the type of mom that liked to have her family close enough to stop by for dinner on Sundays.
Piper sighed again. She was constantly doing this; having a battle in her mind about what to do. She needed advice but she had no idea who she could turn to. Her friends wouldn’t understand, her parents would say no way, and her boyfriend didn’t seem to care less anymore.
“I swear, if you sigh one more time I’m gonna chuck you and your camera out the window,” the voice of her roommate began, “Stop acting like your best friend died. I’m AM sitting right here you know.”
“Sorry V. I’ve just got a shitload of things to do, lots of things on my mind, and there’s not enough time in the day for all of it,” Piper stated, rubbing her eyes.
“Lighten up Piper, you’re acting like you’re forty instead of eighteen going on nineteen,” her roommate continued, shifting on the beanbag she was lying on.
“No I’m not.”
“Yes you are…”
Virginia Harwood and Piper Saunders had been friends since elementary school. They were inseparable. Which was why it only seemed natural for the two to room together at college, though there were times that Piper found she wanted to strangle Virginia.
Despite their random fights, which were few and far between, the girls got along like a charm. After all, Piper knew that if she lost Virginia as her friend, she was bound to lose her contact to the ‘outer world’ as she liked to call it. That was no joke.
Virginia was the more outgoing of the two of them. She was always the one that made all the plans, always the one that pushed Piper to be more outgoing, always looked out for her friend when things got rough. Piper knew she’d always be grateful to her friend, but she also knew that it was about time for her to grow up and stand on her own two feet. After all, she couldn’t rely on Virginia forever.
“So are you seriously okay?” Virginia questioned, interrupting Piper’s thoughts yet again, “You’re so depressed all the time honey. Is there anything I can do?”
“Nah, I’m fine. Just a little distracted, that’s all,” Piper nonchalantly replied, shrugging her shoulders, “I’m just worrying about things that don’t’ really need to be worried about.”
“Yeah, you have a tendency to do that,” Virginia agreed with a grin. Piper rolled her eyes at her friend.
“Thanks for the support V. It’s nice to know you care so much,” Piper teased, closing her book as she knew there was practically no way she was going to get anything more done. Besides, she was reading ahead anyway.
“Anything for you Piper,” Virginia stated, suddenly shutting off the TV, “So you wanna go to dinner now? The caf closes in about a half an hour.”
“Nah, I already ate,” Piper said, pulling her hair into a loose ponytail.
“By yourself?”
“Well, yeah.”
“What happened to having dinner with that wayward brother of mine?”
“He had other plans for dinner tonight,” Piper explained, not wanting to delve deeper into the problems with her boyfriend.
“And what might those be?” Virginia questioned, trying her best to act like she wasn’t being nosy.
“Hell if I know. I wasn’t going to pry if he wasn’t going to tell me,” she retorted, rummaging through the closet for her favorite MSU sweatshirt.
“What an ass. What’s up with you and my brother anyway?” her roommate questioned. Piper thought she was going to cry when Virginia mentioned her twin, “He hasn’t been by in awhile either.”
“To be honest with you V, we had a huge fight the other day and I’m not sure if we can fix things. It’s like our relationship is too much work anymore,” Piper admitted, throwing her body down on the couch once she had put her sweatshirt on.
“Damn,” Virginia whistled, frowning, “Do I have to kick my brother’s skinny little ass?”
Piper almost laughed at that statement. Andrew Harwood was anything but little. The guy was 6’1 and could lift her and Virginia at the same time without breaking a sweat.
Of course, Andrew Harwood was also what many people would call a geek. He loved school, loved studying and loved going to class, something that his twin sister couldn’t quite comprehend. To Piper, he had been perfect.
They had started dating their senior year of high school, having been friends for a few years at that point. Things went well for the first year and a half. Now, though, Piper was discovering just how different she and Andrew were.
He was a flirt, plain and simple. Yeah, he was geeky in the sense that he loved school, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good looking. That he definitely was, and Piper didn’t seem to be his equal anymore. Wherever they went, he seemed to flirt with anything and everything female that walked on two legs and she was sick of it.
Of course, she’d be heartbroken if the two of them broke up, as was likely to happen, for she normally put her all into her relationships once trust was gained. She expected all of this and was actually beginning to accept it. What she was really afraid of at this point was losing her friendship with Virginia.
Virginia and Andrew were twins. Despite being of different sexes, the two were especially close, as most twins normally are. She knew that Virginia supported her no matter what, but this was her brother. Things were definitely bound to change.
Then there was her family. They loved Andrew like a son. They thought he was perfect for her and that once they graduated from college, the two of them would get married. They couldn’t be more wrong.
If Piper was brutally honest with herself, she could say that she no longer cared for Andrew as a boyfriend anymore. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, it was true. Somehow, the two of them had managed to drift apart these past few months until they were practically strangers to each other.
So what was she to do? Alienate her friend and piss off her family, or keep on denying the truth? Ugh. When and why had her life become so complicated? What happened to the good old days of being carefree and not having to worry about anything?
“V, I hate my life,” Piper moaned, burying her head in her arms as she lounged on the couch. She received a smack on the ass.
“That’s for being a bitch,” Virginia snapped, stalking to her desk, “Your life does not suck, you’re just being pessimistic. I don’t give a fuck if you break up with my brother. Hell, he probably deserves it anyway.”
“Virginia…”
“No, let me finish,” Virginia interrupted, “You’ve got so much going for you Piper that I can’t believe you don’t see it. Your photography is amazing, any idiot can see that. Don’t you try to tell me otherwise. And I’ve seen you looking at that website for that school in New York. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how many times you’ve poured over that application without printing it off.”
“Virginia, it’s complicated,” Piper stated, sitting up.
“No Piper, it’s not. You’re just making it complicated. You’ve got enough talent to get a full ride to that school but you’re too scared to take the chance,” Virginia continued, ignoring her friend’s outburst, “I know you have a hard time making friends and fitting in, but get over it Piper. You can’t give up on your future so easily. Just grow some balls already!”
Piper didn’t know what to say. Sure, she’d had her arguments with Virginia before, but this really took the cake. She’d never seen her friend this upset before and she wasn’t sure how to react.
So she did the only thing she thought she could do. She fled. She grabbed her backpack loaded with her camera, notebooks, pens and some other belongings and practically ran from the room. Virginia didn’t even try and stop her.
Once she was out of the dorm, she slowed her pace, trying to get her thoughts in order. She didn’t know where to start. Everything seemed to be messed up at the moment and she didn’t have a clue how to fix it.
She walked as the thoughts tossed and turned in her mind and soon came to her favorite spot, a concrete overhang that hung over the Red Cedar River, the river that flowed through campus. It was surrounded by trees and afforded her the privacy she sought at the moment. She collapsed on the stone and set her bag to her right.
She quickly pulled her private notebook out and began to write at a furious pace. A few years ago she had found that she always felt better after writing things out so she always made sure to carry the notebook with her. No telling when she’d need it. Plus, it was better than trying to talk her feelings out with another human being. That was another one of her faults.
Everything that had been bugging her poured out in her neat, curly handwriting. How desperately she wanted to move to New York and be accepted at the Tisch School of the Arts so she could get the best education possible. How she feared moving to another state and losing her current friendships as well as the hardship of making new friends and being accepted. The new rift she felt between her and Andrew that was certain to lead to the end of their relationship. The problem with money, how she could barely afford to go to MSU, much less a school that was almost $50,000 a year.
She kept going until she had filled almost five pages worth of writing, her hand was cramped, and she felt one hundred percent better. She sighed as she looked up and gazed into the fast-approaching dusk. Quickly, she put the pen and paper away and pulled out her camera, suddenly inspired. She focused the lens in and began to snap away, satisfied with her choice of angles.
She was so caught up in taking her pictures that she almost didn’t notice the happy couple on the opposite side of the river. She gaped at them as she recognized her boyfriend Andrew with some tall lanky blonde that could easily pass off as a model. The tears gathered in her eyes as the two kissed and Andrew pulled her close.
Andrew was cheating on her? What a way to end a horrible day.
