The Outsiders Keepers

Defendant

Two more weeks had flown by, and those two weeks consisted of secrecy and avoiding Piper, and after two weeks our companionship could be delayed no longer.

We were walking around the circle, and we decide to take a shortcut down the alleyway. There were two glass buildings to the side of us, one that was at least ten stories in length and the other seemed to look like a dome that had a rectangle attached to it. The larger one was the offices where my father had worked his whole life.

I turn the corner and I'm met with that same face yet again, the face that's been imprinted in my mind since I saw him last.

I'm nervous when his eyes meet mine. Piper is going on and on about her father's new improvement in his the job, and how he is doing better things for the city. By now, Alexander has approached us, much to Piper's obliviousness.

"You know, Elena, I don't understand why my father does so much for the outsiders; they're not a part of our community."

"But aren't they people too?" Alexander's voice stuns Piper, and she turns around and almost screams at him for scaring her, but she knows better than to raise her voice in a public place.

Piper seems at a loss for words, and I place my hand over my mouth to cover my smile, but it fights its way toward the corners of my lips. Piper turns and knits her eyebrows at me. I've never seen her angry before, and I did not know anger existed with her. "What's so funny, Elena?"

I remember reading in the Bible in Proverbs of how people are supposed to defend one another. Maybe Alexander gets this.

This also makes me wonder, too. Piper has never been one to calculate or consider the opinions of others. She always yells at me as if I am not perfect, or if I do something to mess up. She always has something to criticize me about. It makes me wonder if Piper has been there for me really at all, ever.

I take a daring move, one that anyone could hear, one that anyone could notice. My mother used to say that everyone has a turning point in their life when they need to take a stand.

"Proverbs chapter thirty-one, verses eight through nine. Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy."

I've never seen someone so shocked, as if they were frozen in place. Maybe now I have a clear sense of how I looked when my father spotted me at the door. Piper looks bewildered, and confused, but Alexander just flashes a gentle warm smile at me.

"Where did you learn that?" Piper raises her voice, not too loud for others to hear, but loud enough to try to intimidate me. I suck in a breath, and straighten my posture.

"That is none of your concern," I reply.

"You've been breaking the rules!" She hisses at me. Maybe I was wrong; Piper has not yelled it out, she could have had me arrested by now if only she would have ran and tried to get away.

But just as I thought that maybe, just maybe, Piper has nothing else to say, she turns and bolts down the hallway. I take no chance and begin to run after her.

I didn't know that adrenaline felt like this. My mother told me it was a rush, and that it only came once in a while in a life threatening situation. I felt like my life was in danger, and my feet carried me like it was.

I turn the corner and I can barely see her flannel shirt through the large sea of people. Alexander begins making his way through the large crowd, despite the stares he gets. I'm the only person small enough to possibly make my way through the crowd to catch Piper.

I begin to plow my way through the people, hoping that maybe I can stop her. I call out her name several times, begging for her to stop, but she doesn't slow down.