The Exception// Jack Avery [1]

CHAPTER 7 [the tree]

After been shopping for about 2 hours, we've started to get bored. Right now, we're sitting in starbucks, I have a pink drink and I can't even remember what Jack ordered. I'm looking out and watching the people walk past when I see a group of girls that look familiar. Great, it's the bitchy girls from school. I try to hide my face so they don't see me, and I can hear them laughing and talking through the glass, "hey Gracie, isn't that Tess" Jack says, I look out the window to the big group of girls and see Tess laughing along with them, I'm shocked. Me and Tess has promised that we'd never get involved with them just because they're horrible and have been horrible to me in the past before. "Er, I don't know" I say looking away as soon as I spot her.

Why would she be with them, she told me she wouldn't even be back until tonight. "Are you sure because I'm pretty sure that was..." Jack begins, "it wasn't okay, she's not getting back from the cabins until tonight" I say quickly. "Okay fine" he says quiter going back to drinking his coffee. "I'll be right back" I say standing up, "where are you going" he asks, "toilet, duh" I say, "oh okay" he smiles. I walk off the toilet not looking back. I unlock my phone and go to text Tess to ask her when she's coming back but I delete the text as soon as I type it thinking it was stupid. Tess wouldn't do that to me, she's my bestfriend, she's not like that. I didn't even look hard enough to see that it was her.

I walk out the toilet and I quickly pause and hide behind the wall. I see one of the girls, Talia, sitting at the same table across from Jack, in my seat of course. The other group of girls were near the counter ordering. I don't know what to do. I see that Jack looks uncomfortable as he's squirming in his seat. He has his hand rested on the table and she reaches out her hand for his. I feel fire in my stomach, but Jack pulls his hand away so I calm down. I don't know if should walk over to him, or leave it until they leave but I can't stay hidden behind the wall forever. "Talia come on we're leaving" I hear one girls shout from the group, "stop flirting and lets go" another shouts. Talia stands up ad re-joins the group. I hide myself completely behind the wall until I'm sure the group has gone before I walk over to Jack warily and sit back down.

"Hey" I say, "hey" he says, "miss anything when I left?" I ask, "err, no" he says looking down at his hands. He didn't tell me about the girls. I don't know why. I get a call and I see it's from my mum when her contact name pops up on my phone, "be quiet" I say to Jack whilst picking up the phone and pressing answer. "Hey mum" I say, "hi sweetie do you have your key with you?" she asks from the other end, I check my pockets really quick, "er yeah why?" I ask her, "good, because I probably won't be home when you come back, Elliott has a play date around Reggies house and I'm going round as well because we're having dinner there with his mum too" she says, "oh okay, what time will you be back?" I ask, "probably around 6ish, I'm going to leave in a minute" she says, I pull my phone away from my ear to check what time it was quickly.

I see its 2pm and put my phone back to my ear, "okay mum" I say, "are you okay with getting dinner yourself" she asks, "yeah I'm fine mum don't worry about it" I say, "okay honey, see you later, stay safe, I love you" she says, "I love you too mum" I say whilst hanging up. I look up at Jack, and I can tell by his expression he wants to know what my mum had said. "My mum's going out with Elliott and won't be back until 6" I say, "oh" he says, "so do you wanna go back mine now? I'm getting kind of bored, we can do some math, or just hang out?" I say, "yeah sure" he smiles. "Let's go, I don't really want to run into them girls right now" I say standing up. Jack stands up slowly and follows me as we walk out of starbucks.

When we get home, I pray that my mum and Elliott have left. As I try to open the door I see that it's locked which means they must have gone. I pull out my keys and unlock the door and walk in with Jack by my side. "You changed the walls" he says first, "yeah, got bored of the brownish colour so we painted them grey a couple months after dad passed" I say, looking at the walls. "I like it" he says and I smile. "Okay lets go upstairs" I say and we walk upstairs to my bed room. "Since when did you have a blue room?" he asks as sit on my bed, "since I felt like a change" I laugh. "Ohhh, that's so cool" he says walking over to my bed whilst looking up at my ceiling full of photos.