He Cancelled Our Future for Her Anxiety novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Cup, Saucer, Spoon

Piper was already in the café when I got there, at a corner table with her back to the wall.

She wore a gray sweatshirt too big for her and a baseball cap pulled low.

She looked younger than twenty-two.

When she saw me she stood so fast her chair scraped.

"You came," she said.

"You said you were on a plane."

"I landed forty minutes ago." She pushed a cup across the table. "I got you tea. I didn't know how you take it."

"Milk, no sugar."

"I'll remember." She sat back down and put both hands around her own cup, and I saw they were trembling. "I don't have a phone. I left it in my room in Phoenix, on the charger, so they'd think I was asleep. This one is from the airport."

"Does your mother know you're here?"

"Not yet."

"Piper."

"I'm okay." She laughed, a thin breath. "Not okay. But I'm here."

I sat down across from her.

The woman at the next table was reading a newspaper and not paying attention.

I decided that if Piper wanted a minute, she could have one.

She took it.

"I didn't write the text about the money," she said.

I waited.

"The one that said I'd make sure you got it back. My mom wrote that. She does it when I'm in a bad week. She picks up my phone and answers for me, so I don't make it worse." She looked at the table. "I told you the amount because she knew the amount. I didn't."

"I thought so."

"You did?"

"The first message sounded like you. The second sounded like a lawyer."

Piper looked up at me for the first time.

Her eyes were wide, brown, and very tired.

"I tried to call my brother once, last spring," she said. "It was the only number I knew by heart. My mother took the phone out of my hand before it rang."

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