Torn To Bits

Chapter 12

A/N: Hey!!! How about that last cliffhanger?! Yaaaa...anyway, you can see I changed the picture at the top⬆️, and now it is a picture of two outfits. You will find out what this is for early in the book, but I don't want to spoil anything, sooooo....ya. That's that.

"H-hi." I reach out my hand. He takes it and shakes it. We both kind of look at each other like we had no idea what he other existed. This is getting very awkward. One of us needs to say something.

I decide to ask whether the rest of Jason's family is alive."So is the rest of your family alive?" I say, just as he asks,"So where did you two meet?"

"We met at the mall." I say quickly.

"Typical teen romance these days. You don't meet at a ball like Cinderella did, you meet at a mall. That's not surprising."

"He saved me. From a drunk guy." I mumble.

"Well that's Jason for you. He's amazing. He always wants to help people. He doesn't even know I'm alive. I had to fake an accident to get here. They needed me for the rebellion." He says."He's going to be so mad at me." He says, sitting next to me on the bed. I grab Jason's hand and connect my fingers with them and bring them to my face. "Were you two close?" I ask.

"Ya. When our parents died, they did, but I pretended I was dead. I went here and Jason was into foster care. I don't think he has told anyone about it; I know I wouldn't tell anyone about it, even my closet friends." He says, voice breaking. I don't want him to cry. If he starts crying, I will start sobbing.

"Do you know if there are any other restaurants around here? If there are, you, my friend Audrey, and I could go together. It could be a good distraction instead of mourning all day." I offer. He perks up."I know a place that we can go. What about Friday at six? We can meet up here?"

"It sounds great." I smile."I'll go tell Audrey." I give Jason a kiss and behind me Liam whistles. I shove him and he backs away with his hands up.

"No wonder he likes you." He says, smiling. He's the boy I would want as an older brother. Jason's lucky. I shove him again and he shoves me back. I laugh and he does too. I don't know when was the last time I laughed. It feels foreign.

**************

We have two days until Friday, and for some reason, Audrey is freaking out.

"Is he cute? Never mind, your boyfriend's cute, he must be cute. Oh jeez, what am I going to wear. Omigosh. No. No. Defiantly no. Ab-"

"Audrey! Come on. Calm down. I'll just tell you the restaurant and you can dress according to that." I pull up the text that Liam sent me on my phone. "Italian Villa. Dress to that." I say. "And why are you picking out your outfit today? We have two more days."

"Tomorrow you have a meeting with President Reynolds. You postponed once, you can't again. I recommend that you pick out your outfit too." She fights back.

**************

The next few days, I lay with Jason, sleep in his hospital bed, and cuddle up next to him. The doctors have good news so far, and say that he should be awake sometime this weekend. He's had multiple surgeries, but his leg is much better. My meeting went well with President Reynolds, but she seemed bored most of the time. I guess I'm not that important in her life, which is okay by me. If I had a lot of responsibility on my hands, I would probably be hiding under my bed.

**************

Friday comes in no time. I wear jeans along with a cream tank top that flows in different sections. Along with this, I have various pink jewelry, a pink purse, and cream flats to top it off. I pull my hair into a side fishtail braid and call for Audrey. She comes out wearing a tight pink crop top, a white skirt, and a flowery button down as a jacket. She has various pieces of gold jewelry on and has gold sandals on too. Her hair is down, her long blond waves matching with anything. She has no idea how hard it is to come up with an outfit with auburn hair.

We head over to the restaurant, which is in the middle of the facility. Of course Audrey wants to go back and change after every minute.

"Audrey, calm down. It's fine. It's not a date, just friends getting together for dinner. We're probably too fancy." I explain.

"Well in that case-" she turns. I pull her away.

"Come on..." I drag her away. We head into the restaurant and everyone stops to stare at me. Great.

"Someone's popular." Audrey says, nudging me.

I ignore the comment and turn to the restaurant to look for Liam. I finally see him and literally drag Audrey over. Liam sees us and Audrey stops slouching.

"Why...why didn't you tell me he was cute? Come on, you're supposed to tell me these things. It's in the best friend rule book." She complains.

"I heard that." Liam calls over.

Audrey blushes and hustles over to the table with me. We sit down and a waiter comes up and asks what we want for a drink. I order a pink lemonade and Audrey just orders water. Liam already has his drink, and questions us about our conversation.

"So which one of you thought I was cute?" He smiles.

Audrey blushes and raises her hand the slightest bit.

"Well, I have to say the same thing to you." He says. Audrey's face turns bright red."Anyway," Liam says,"I have a little surprise for you." A second later, Jason jumps out from behind us and plants his lips on mine. Once he takes them off, he says one word: "Surprise."