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“Piper!” I snap, pulling her out of her musings. “What happened with Ella?”
“You don’t know? Linc didn’t tell you?” Piper sounds shocked which makes me think I was right to be hurt by that fact.
“No,” I say quietly. “Tell me, Piper.”
“Shit,” she mutters. “Hold on. Let me get somewhere private.”
It takes her a couple of minutes to walk to a place where she can speak freely; my guess is she went to her rarely used office in the back of the coffee shop.
“Okay,” she huffs. “What do you know?”
I repeat everything Miss Dottie told me this morning, trying not to leave anything out. When I finish, Piper is quiet.
“Well?” I say. “What am I missing?”
“I can’t believe Linc wouldn’t tell you,” she says. “But I guess I understand why.”
“Piper,” I say. “Focus. What happened to Ella?”
She sighs. “Shit. I think you should talk to Linc.”
“Piper. Damn it. I’m invoking girl code. Tell me right now.”
“Fuck. Fine. But promise me you won’t freak out about this,” she says.
“I promise,” I say quickly.
“Why don’t I believe that? She mutters.
“I have no idea,” I say, sweetly.
Piper sighs. “Ella was being teased by this kid at school yesterday. She kept telling him to leave her alone and he wouldn’t. Eventually, she got sick of his shit and punched him in the nose. He started bleeding and crying, and they both ended up in the principal’s office.”
I feel that same shock I’d felt earlier when Miss Dottie had talked about Ella hitting someone. I can’t understand why she would do something like that. And I really don’t understand why Linc wouldn’t tell me about it.
“That doesn’t seem like her,” I say.
“I was pretty shocked when Luke told me about it,” Piper says.
“Luke told you?” So, Linc spoke to Luke about it, but not me. That makes sense, I guess. Luke is practically family to Linc. They talk about everything.
“Uh, yeah,” Piper says. “I guess Linc talked to him yesterday. Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” I say brightly. “Luke’s his best friend. Of course, he’d tell him.”
“I wonder what would make Ella so upset that she’d hit someone, though,” I say, changing the subject.
When Piper is quiet, I press her. “You know, don’t you.” It’s not a question, and she knows it.
She sighs. “I think it might also be why he didn’t tell you,” she says.
I feel dread wash over me as I wonder what could have been so awful to make a sweet, kind little girl turn to violence. Not to mention, bad enough that Linc wanted to keep it from me.
“Tell me. Please.”
“He said some mean things about Ella’s hair,” Piper says. “And then called her dad’s girlfriend a whore.”
“What the fuck?” I say, shocked that an 8-year-old would use such language. “Who the hell is this kid?”
