Piece By Piece (Book #2)

Chapter One

Disclaimer: If you have not read My Life in Pieces, read that book first or this one will not make a lot of sense!

The late August air had a small chill starting to infiltrate it. September would come tomorrow and that meant another school year was about to begin. It was hard to believe that I had lived in Cabbagetown, a neighborhood in Toronto, Ontario for a full year now. I had moved here from Dallas, Texas at the start of last school year.

I was currently laying on a blanket in the backyard of my Aunt Claire and Uncle Jim's. Next to me were two of my best friends, Elle Evans and Jensen Echols. Our other friend Cassie Lancaster was standing over us retelling a story about her date last week with my cousin James. We were all hanging out here for Claire and Jim's annual back to school BBQ.

This summer had solidified us four as our own mini clique. We were all intertwined though in a giant clique known around school as, The Families. There were five groups of families, The Harrisons, Evans/Munros, Masons, Stones/Leightons, and Flores. The oldest boys of each family had known each other since they played peewee hockey and had stayed friends for over a decade. All of their siblings had naturally followed suit.

Dylan Harrison, Jake Munro, Gavin Mason, Logan Stone, and Max Flores had all graduated this year and were headed off to different universities this next week. Gavin and Dylan were rooming together at the University of Toronto, Jake was going to one in Alberta, Max was headed to New York, and Logan was going to a University in Quebec. It would be the last time I saw most of them until Thanksgiving. It also left the rest of us to figure out what that meant for this next year. Would we all still be a massive clique or were we going to size down into smaller groups? I for one voted for a group that let me vote Elle's step-brother, Ari,  off the island.

Ari Munro was my ex boyfriend. His current girlfriend, Darcy Blake, was the equivalent of a mosquito buzzing in my ear. She had been a lacky of Cassie's last year. When Jensen started dating Declan Stone and Cassie started dating James, Darcy went for the first boy she could find from the families that would take her. She landed on the then very recently single Ari. Darcy had this warped sense of self importance that made her think that because she was dating Ari then the rest of us should accept her into the fold. 

It didn't work like that. We weren't a cult. We were a group of teenager girls who very much could hold a grudge.

It didn't help that Darcy was a grade younger than the rest of us four. The only time we had to put up with her was in Cross Country. The school had decided that we had enough numbers to have a Fall athletics class. It meant that all of us would be in the same gym class. I was going to do my best to ignore her. 

Currently though, that was difficult. 

Her hyena laugh could be heard clear across the yard. I looked over and saw Darcy sitting in Ari's lap laughing at a joke that Ari's brother Jake was making. I barely recognized Ari.

Last year Elle, Ari, and Elle's boyfriend Aaron were sitting in the corner like a cloud of emo darkness when I got to the BBQ. Now Ari looked more like a model for Abercrombie. His outfit was coordinated with Darcy's. I was sure his parents loved this Stepford version of their kid. Elle assured me that it wasn't an act either. At home, apparently, he had painted over his black walls with a light shade of tope. 

I knew people went through phases and the Ari I knew had left me in the dust of his last one.

I tried not to stare in their direction for too long and to find something more interesting to look at. The Leighton twins Annie and Landon and the Flores twins Nina and Reece were parked in one corner. Reece's boyfriend Ryan Stone had his head resting on Reece's shoulder. My cousin Laura was over there too with her boyfriend Gavin.