Choose Wisely

Chapter Seventeen: Truth Reveals Reality

A.N. So... five comments until next chapter? 

Random Question: what do you readers read that's published? Anyone read any Mortal Instruments, Infernal Devices, Skulduggery Pleasant, Harry Potter, Twilight, Vampire Academy, Eragon series etc. In your comment below, let me know what books you like!

Also:

1. The title of your last book you've read will explain your future romance.

2. The title of the last song you listened to will explain your future job.

3. The title of the last TV show will explain your mode of death.

My Answers:

1. The Fault In Our Stars (I am so utterly screwed).

2. Epic Score- I Have A Story (author, yes please!)

3. The Walking Dead. Hmm. 

He led me into the cafe which had started it all and I almost laughed as we entered. I didn't though. The silence between us didn't allow for a single sound- especially if I was the one that made it. West was the orchestrator of this date and I was a helpless instrument, playing the music that was wrenched out of me. He nodded at one of the waiters and they ushered us into a booth: still as weather-worn and beaten as it had been before.

"Welcome to Fry High," the perky, cute blond worker greeted us, bobbing her head slightly as she talked. "When you are ready to order, use the tablet, make your choices and the food will be brought right out for you." Each word was cheerful and seemed to chime out of her mouth like the light tinkling of a bell. But then, she must have been... fifteen or sixteen with the slim straightness of her body. She wasn't anywhere near her Choosing.

Explained the ignorant happiness so well, really.

The girl left, her warmth a stark comparison to the icy chill of this soundless conversation. I was engaging myself in several conversation starters that would never work but I created anyway, as if a good ice-breaker would heal months of damage- when I found a verbal prelude wasn't necessary.

Not on my part anyway.

"Renovations," West muttered, leaning back and sighing. "You would think Fry High would never change... but it clearly did."

"The last time they gave us laminated menus," I recalled, a musing tint to my tone. Last time, the scale had been balanced and I didn't have guilt weighing me down. Last time, I was young and inquisitive, wondering if everyone was like me. Last time, I asked West if he had kissed someone.

And he had said yes.

My mind fixated on the photograph, the picture that had worried me to senseless pieces when it hadn't been my right to worry all along. Our day in the Gardens. Pink blossoms and blond hair, freckles and contagious excitement. A question I never really asked and an answer I never really received. Just thoughts that I consumed myself with: was it a sister? A friend? Or a lover?

Once, I would have rejected that idea: West couldn't have a lover because it was against the rules.

But I had broken all the rules.

"You've been coming here long?" I asked him, tentative but certain at the same time. I knew the answer already in how he had first entered the cafe that first time and how he had entered it now. His eyes skimmed the room like he knew what would be there before he looked and the seat we chose was the same as the last time, like the waiter knew to place us here before a needless request.