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"Hey why are you wearing a sweatshirt, it's 90 degrees out?" Is the first thing Ki says to me when she climbs into the van. I glance at JJ and he shakes his head. This isn't the time or the place to tell her.
"I was cold." I simply state and she doesn't give it a second thought, widening her eyes before rolling them and reaching over to open the door for Pope.
"Hey she's alive!" He remarks as he climbs into the van, setting his bag down next to Ali's in the center of the vehicle. "Yeah I look pretty good for a dead bitch huh?" I joke, sneaking a glance at JJ, who's hand had creeped onto my side of the van, onto my knee.
"I'm glad your okay. But why did they keep you so long though, I thought you just had to get stitches on your head?" Kiara asks as JJ shifts gears, pulling out of the driveway and onto the main road.
"They has to do some tests, since I pay conciseness but it was nothing that serious so they sent me home." The lie practically crosses through my lips before I can even stop it. I'm getting way too good at this.
Through the rear view mirror Pope sends JJ a look but JJ just ignores it, looking back at the road. While it's pretty easy to lie to Ki, Pope knows when something is up. The rest of the ride is filled with uncomfortable silence and the constant war of JJ's had wanting to touch my leg and me having none of it. Every time it would touch me I would just keep brushing it off. I felt like I could finally breathe when we pulled into the parking lot of the park.
"Now that that's over, who is excited for the movie?" Pope says, more sarcastically than I would have liked him to. "Well I am always down for a movie." Ki pipes in, attempting to change the mood.
"I'm so glad that they're still doing this. Keep calm, carry on. Back to the summer movie series OBX life." She says, stepping over discarded bags of popcorn.
"Aren't you guys glad I made you come?" She looks at us and Pope fake cheers before saying, "Ecstatic," sarcastically. JJ then plays into it, "my couch would have been pretty comfy, to be honest."
I then glance at both JJ and Pope, clearing my throat. "Well I for one am genuinely excited. It is really nice to be outside. Hospitals give me nightmares."
"Thank you Del. At least someone appreciates the effort I put into thinking of plans."Ki smiles before grabbing my wrist gently. "Hey let's go get snacks while they're preoccupied." She gestures to the boys, who are talking to each other in hushed voices, too quiet to understand what they're saying.
I nod and we make our way over to the food stand and I self consciously pull down the sweatshirt I'm wearing. This whole hiding my body until I'm ready to talk about it thing is a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. I can feel eyes k on n me everywhere 24/7.
"Hey uh... can I get two Pepsi's and, what do you want Del?" Ki looks and me and I immediately shake my head. "I don't want anything." The thought of drinking anything carbonated makes my stomach churn. "Okay I guess just two Pepsi's." She then hands him the money, just as Rafe walks up to us.
