Page 18 of Left on Read

We don’t know.

Notes exchanged on the printout of “Success is counted sweetest” by Emily Dickinson

“Esha,” I whisper-hiss as she walks across the cafeteria.

“What?” she calls over her shoulder. Her white sneakered feet don’t stop moving toward Piper’s table, and I don’t know why I assumed they would.

“Leave her alone,” I hiss again, less of a whisper and more of a plea.

Esha rolls her eyes and keeps walking, right up to where Piper sits alone. Piper has her nose in a book and her AirPods in. This is classicI want to be left alonebody language, and somehow, we’re still here. Although—like before—I senselonelinessfrom her.

For one intense moment, I think Esha is going to say something dramatic. Like,This is an intervention,or a more direct,Why haven’t you dumped him yet?

“Hey,” she says instead. Her smile is soft and gentle. She seems warm, not unhinged. I’ll never know how she pulls that off. It must be in those eyes. They’re fathomless, and she could rule the world with just a look. Almost a shame she wants to use them for saving puppies and kittens instead of running for president.

“What’s up?” Piper asks, like we must have come over here for a reason. Like we wouldn’t just come by to talk. She closes her book and neatly tucks her AirPods away. All of her stuff matches: backpack, pencil pouch, wallet, AirPods case. All in the same dusty lavender.

“Well …,” Esha starts, letting her voice trail off and looking over at me.

At that moment, I realize what this is: an ambush. We’re not ambushing Piper. Esha is ambushing me. She does this sometimes. Opens doors for me. Metaphorical ones. Social doors. They’re doors that barely ever close for her and never, ever open for me.

“We just …,” I start, because the door’s open, but the first step is always the hardest. “We just wanted to check in.”

Piper’s eyebrows draw up, and I feel my mind starting to whir again. If Esha is Simone Ashley, Piper is a younger, more Southern Phoebe Dynevor. A classic blond beauty who expresses all of her emotion in her forehead and lips.

“I know you’ve been through a lot lately.” I massively understatethe obvious because I don’t want to point out what a mess this all is. “And we just wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

“Oh.” Piper’s face falls, and my stomach drops with it. She picks at a fraying edge of a notebook page. I start to think I’ve made a huge mistake.

Then, she laughs. This laugh isn’t light and free, like a joy she can’t contain. It’s heavy and dark, like a despair that’s containing her.

“I didn’t think anyone cared.” Once her laugh drops off, her face crinkles up in a way that seems uncomfortable. “I mean, I know that’s pathetic, but I’ve just been counting down the days until high school is over.”

I don’t know what to do with that. It worries me beyond belief.

“But … I’ve been thinking.” Piper shrugs, and her shoulders stay set high near her ears. “About what you said.”

“About whatIsaid? What did I say?” I ask. A long moment passes.

“You said it was okay if it didn’t work out.” Her posture finally relaxes, and she rests her forearms on the table.

“Oh. Yeah. I did say that.” I can’t figure out her expression. “I’m sorry. Was I not supposed to say that?”

“No, I appreciate the honesty, actually. No one’s ever told me that. That I could be okay without him.”

“What do you mean?” Esha asks, completely investing herself in this situation just because I also sort of have. “Why wouldn’t you be okay without him?”

Piper’s somber eyes turn to the center of the room, watching her former friends falling all over one another laughing without her. She looks so desperately sad. It’s a hopeless look I recognize, but I’ve never seen it on her.

“You’ve seen them.” Piper meets my eyes first, then Esha’s. “Some of them got so frustrated, they gave up on me. The others just like being popular. The laughing ones. If I’m without him, I’m without them too.”

I know the ones who’ve drifted from Piper did it because they can’t stand to see her hurting herself with this awful boy. Maybe that was wrong of them; I can’t really say. The others, though? The ones who have chosen Bryce, because of his social caché? Knowing I might be about to make a huge social misstep, I continue anyway: “You’re without them now, aren’t you?”

Piper reels back like she’s been mortally wounded, and Esha widens her eyes at me in a way that lets me know I did indeed fuck this conversation up.

“I just mean, like, literally. Physically. They’re over there. You’re over here.”

Esha rolls her eyes. I don’t usually use “literally.” I always mean what I say literally.