Chapter Text
Piper’s coping really well with her breakup. She is. Sure, she hasn’t left her room in three days, choosing instead to wallow among her bedsheets and the unpacked boxes collecting dust in the corner, but she hasn’t Instagram stalked Dylan in over 48 hours. This is progress.
Her stomach gurgles, as if in protest. The last time she ate anything was 2 a.m. last night, creeping into the kitchen after her roommates had turned in for bed to snag whatever snacks she could get her hands on. The empty Chips Ahoy! container is still on her nightstand.
Her stomach moans again. Groaning, Piper turns up her speaker to drown out the sound of her rude and ill-timed hunger.
A few minutes later, there’s a knock on her bedroom door. “Piper?”
Piper considers pretending she didn’t hear it for a few seconds. She figures that wouldn’t be very nice and mutes her music. “Yeah?”
“Is it cool if we come in?”
Piper takes in the sight of her room; boxes everywhere and clothes she was supposed to hang days ago strewn over almost every piece of furniture. She spares herself and doesn’t look in the mirror. If that’s how her room looked, she doesn’t want to see her own reflection.
She sits up in bed. Screw it. “Yeah, sure.”
The knob on her door twists slowly, and Percy, followed by Leo and Travis, awkwardly shuffle inside her room.
“Are you okay?” Percy asks, biting the bullet for the three of them. “You’ve been listening to Un-break My Heart by Toni Braxton for over an hour.”
Piper frowns. “Really?” She looks at her phone. The repeat sign on the song is indeed highlighted green. “Wow. I didn’t even notice.”
“Yeah,” says Percy. He grimaces, “It’s giving me major war flashbacks to cleaning on Saturday mornings with my mom.” He looks around, taking in the sight of Piper’s room, probably thinking that this environment is nothing like Saturday morning cleaning with his mother.
“Sorry. Should I go back to Taylor Swift?”
All the boys immediately protest. Piper huffs and lies back down.
“Fine. I’ll turn off the music. I hope you enjoy my cries of heartbreak and betrayal instead.”
They all protest again, but Piper’s already resigned herself to hiding under her bed sheets.
“Aw, no, Piper. Don’t waste your tears on that dude,” Percy coaxes. He reaches over and gently pulls the sheets off of Piper’s head.
“Yeah, he’s an asshole,” Travis agrees. His eyes light up. “Do you want to get rid of him?”
Piper’s head rolls over in his direction, brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”
“What do you mean ‘what do I mean?’ Do you want to get rid of him? I know people.”
Leo nods. “He knows people.”
Travis whips out a small, black cell that is definitely not the smart phone she usually sees him with. “It’ll only take a phone call.”
“No!” Piper says quickly, sitting up. “No, no. That’s okay.”
Travis shrugs, shoving the burner phone back into his pocket. “Alright. But the offer’s still on the table if you change your mind.”
Piper. . .is concerned. And slightly tempted. Nevertheless, she shakes her head. “It’s okay. I just kind of want to wallow in my own pity for right now.”
“We get it,” Percy says. “Leo got dumped six months ago. He was pretty pathetic too.”
“Hey!” Piper and Leo exclaim. Percy raises his hands defensively.
Travis whistles lowly. “Calypso really did a number on you, dude. I never thought I’d see the Super-sized Mcshizzle Man that torn up over a girl. And a vegan, no less.”
Leo’s face contorts in offense. “I wasn’t ‘torn up’! And you got dumped by a vegan, too, so where do we go from here, Trav?”
“Katie didn’t dump me. I dumped her this time around, thank you. And she’s not a vegan, she’s a vegetarian—“
“That’s just as bad!”
“Uh,” Piper interrupts the bickering men. She quirks an eyebrow at them. “As a vegetarian, just what the hell are you two trying to say?”
It’s comical the way their eyes widen, Piper thinks. The next minute they spend trying to backtrack their vegan/vegetarian slander is the most joy Piper’s felt in a while. Percy too, it seems, the way he’s doubled over in laughter.
“Look,” Leo begins, giving up on amending his past comments, “point is—we feel you Piper. We’ve all had rough breakups before.”
“Nope!” Percy says, his grin widening. “Not me. My relationship is still going strong. Seven years strong, to be exact.”
Leo and Travis boo and jeer at him. Piper raises her brow in surprise. Seven years is a long time. That’s how long she and Dylan were together. “Really?”
Percy nods enthusiastically, brightening. “Her name’s Annabeth. She’s smart, gorgeous,” he turns to Leo and Travis, smirking, “and she loves a good burger.”
Piper puts a hand over her heart, it aching over how Percy talks about his longtime girlfriend. God she wishes that were her. Leo and Travis, however, aren’t emotionally moved at all.
“Simp jar,” Leo states, frowning. Ah, the jars on the fireplace: ‘Douchebag,’ ‘Simp,’ and ‘Dumbass.’ Once Piper learned what they all meant, she was kind of surprised her roommates still had cash to cough up.
“Yeah,” Travis agrees with Leo. Percy sticks his tongue out at them. “And she doesn’t love burgers. She just hates cows!”
Piper blinks. “Huh?”
Percy glares at Travis. “She has trauma involving cows.” He turns to Piper. “I would explain, but she forbid me to talk about it to anyone.”
“How cute,” Piper remarks. “Oh, to be a white girl dating her high school sweetheart.”
A confused frown makes its way onto Percy’s face. “How’d you know she was white?”
Piper snorts. “You think a person of color is naming their child Annabeth?”
Travis absolutely folds with laughter, loud and booming within Piper’s crowded room. Piper continues to stare down Percy, witnessing his face turn a flattering shade of pink.
“Piper,” Leo says with a wide mouth, voice laced with shock. “I. . . I think that’s your first Douchebag Jar.”
“Yes!” Travis exclaims, hardly recovered from his wheezes. “Finally!”
Percy clears his throat. “From a completely objective point of view. . . Yeah, that was definitely Douchebag worthy.”
Piper begins to protest, stating that she was just pointing out what was clearly obvious, but the boys were not having it. Leo obnoxiously starts a chant, and the other two follow his lead. To the rambunctious and annoying mantra of Douchebag! Douchebag! Douchebag! she retrieves her wallet from the mess of her bedroom floor, takes out a dollar and heads out into the living room, her roommates following behind. When she finally shoves the folded bill into the jar labeled ‘Douchebag,’ the three of them give a cheer that’s definitely going to get them a noise complaint.
Piper shakes her head in amusement. “Why are you cheering?” She points at Percy. “I insulted your girlfriend.”
“So you admit it was an insult,” Leo chimes in.
Ignoring him, Percy beams at Piper. “You left your room for the first time today!”
Lo and behold, Piper has indeed ventured outside of her room for the first time today. Still, she scoffs. “Yeah, because of you all made me put a dollar in your weird psychological conditioning jar.”
Travis tuts. “Bet you won’t call Annabeth white again, though.”
“Oh trust me, I will.”
“Our weird conditioning jar brought you out of your hermit cave, Piper,” Leo says matter-of-factly. “This calls for a celebration.”
“You three are so dramatic.”
“You listened to one Toni Braxton song on loop for an hour!” Percy exclaims.
“Movie night!” Travis interjects, flinging himself into the sofa. He leans forward to grab Piper’s wrist and yanks her down to sit next to her. “You can pick, Piper.”
Piper’s eyes light up in excitement. “Bring It On?”
Travis immediately shakes his head. “Never mind, you actually aren’t allowed to pick.”
Piper’s groan is drowned out by the laughter of the three men. Percy settles in on her right, grabbing the remote and scrolling through the endless amount of movies they have downloaded on their smart TV. There’s no way they paid for all of them, and Travis is behind the pirating, Piper just knows it.
“I’ll make dinner,” Leo states. “I’m thinking tacos. Y’all?”
The other two men enthusiastically agree. Piper grimaces. “I don’t eat—“
“Don’t worry, McLean,” Leo assures her. “I make a mean vegetarian taco. You cool with black beans?”
For some reason, Piper’s chest feels incredibly light. She nods, and Leo sends her a wink before venturing off into the kitchen.
“You know why he can make a mean vegetarian taco?” Travis mutters.
“Calypso,” Percy finishes.
“Can it!”
Piper dissolves in giggles as her roommates go back and forth. They are definitely receiving a noise complaint tomorrow. It was worth it, she thinks later on. She doesn’t think about Dylan for the rest of the night.