As We Were

Chapter Thirteen

Diana~

"Table for two please," Jared says to the hostess in the front as we enter the restaurant.

"Right this way." She led us to our table, a perfect size for the two of us.

We sit down and I can feel my face fall flat, blank. Jared's back is to them but I can see the scene perfectly. My father is sitting a few tables down, and seeing him made me remember the conversation with his new girlfriend. They had set up to meet tonight at somewhere he said would be a surprise. I almost can't look. My eyes want to reject the lady who sits across from my father, the lady that will make my mom disappear for good. I raise my glance reluctantly, but to my shock, sitting at the table with him is a man.

Gary.

My thoughts are completely jumbled and all I know is that I need to get out of here. I need to have some space before I can deal with this.

"Diana, are you all right?" Jared's voice surprises me. It is sweet and caring.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. Just... fine." I notice my hands beginning to shake so I place them in my lap. "Jared..." I quietly blurt, and bite my tongue before I say anything. This isn't something you should spring up on someone.

"Yeah? What's wrong?" his face is serious but calm. He looks at me and I look at him and his caring personality seems to put my mind at ease.

"Never mind... let's just get back to dinner or whatever." I don't know if I even believe what I just said myself, so I'm sure he is going to be skeptical.

"We could leave, go to McDonald's or something."

"No, let's stay. Yeah, let's stay." I don't really want to be here right now but I would hate to ruin this and make it totally awkward. I have absolutely no problem when people ask me to do things for them, but I hate asking people to do something for me. It just feels like I'm messing things up.

"Are you sure?" He looks more worried now.

"Yeah, yeah. What are you ordering?" I need to start talking about something else. I need to be taken away from what's happening. Hopefully small talk will help me accomplish this.

I don't know. I haven't even looked at the menu yet," he chuckles a little, but talks carefully.

I giggle, "Neither did I."

I look down at the menu and take this time to escape, to release the face that I was holding back. Luckily my dad hasn't noticed that I was even here, but what do I do after tonight? Do I confront him and have him explain himself? Do I wait for him to come and talk to me himself? He hasn't been very quick about telling me things in the past, so it may take a while. Finally, I decide that it is torture staying here acting like nothing is happening. "This place is too fancy to my liking." Jared says. Him saying it made me realize how uncomfortable I must have looked. He continues, "I think we should go somewhere else." I feel horrible about changing our plans, but I won't be able to keep my sanity if I don't leave.

I think he just wanted me to be happy while we were on this date thing or whatever you want to call it. He knew that I wanted to go somewhere else.

And I say rather sarcastically, to make it seem as if he's the bad guy,"Okay, if you don't like it." He walks over to pull out my chair as I stood up, which was very nice of him. If anyone around our table saw us, they'd probably think we were dating.

"Where to next?" My curiosity has come back.

He smiled, "That's a surprise." I feel my dad's eyes on us as we leave, but I don't return mine.