This Is What Happens When Love Meets Destruction

- FF One Month -
Keeping to myself, I quickly picked up my welding booth and put my materials away before I slipped out of the welding shop. As soon as I left the protection of the shop, the cold October air bit at my face, leaving me to utter a few choice words under my breath. I pulled the hood of my sweatshirt up and over my head, hoping that it would offer some sort of protection from the cold, and then set off back to the auto shop where my school things were.

I wasn't surprised to find that I was the first one back; most of the time the boys stayed in the shop until the bell rang because none of them ever paid attention to the time. Sighing softly, I took a seat on the table beside my bag and waited patiently for the bell to ring, signaling our fifty-five minute break for lunch.

After about a minute of sitting in silence, I heard the backdoor open once again, followed by the sound of a single pair of footsteps making their way across the auto shop. Silently, I glanced over my shoulder to see who it was.

Alex gave me a cute smile and then joined me at my table. "Ready for lunch?" He asked.

"Yup." I replied, "I'm starving; I skipped breakfast this morning so that I'd have room in my stomach. You and Jack keep talking about making me and Lauren eat all this food ... I had to make sure that I'd be able to stomach off of it." I blushed slightly, causing Alex to laugh loudly at me.

"You're a dork." He teased.

"Seriously Alex." I grinned. "The way you two have been talking about it, it sounds like you're going to be buying one of each from the menu."

"Well, they have good food." Alex laughed. "I don't know if we're going to buy everything on the menu, but, we'll probably come pretty damn close." He joked.

"Alexander William," I sighed, shaking my head.

"Victoria Isabella," Alex mocked my tone, while giving me a teasing smile.

Faking a mean look, I opened my mouth to respond with a witty comeback, but the bell rang overhead, causing me to stop short. Instead, I stuck my tongue out at him and grabbed my bag before I followed him out of the auto shop.

Once again, the cold air swiped at me, sending a chill throughout my body. Unconsciously, I stepped more toward Alex, hoping that he would be able to offer some protection from the cold. Seeing me shivering and clutching my hoodie to my body, Alex laughed quietly and took off his jacket, throwing it over my shoulders.

"Better?" He asked.

I nodded my head as I straightened it out some. "Aren't you freezing, Alex?"

Alex shrugged his shoulders as we made our way through the hallways of the school. "I'm fine." He insisted. "We're going to be in the car before long anyway." He pointed out.

With that, we rounded the corner and saw Lauren and Jack approaching us from the other end of the hallway. We expertly made our way through the crowd that consisted of our classmates and came to a stop just in front of one another.

"You guys ready?" I asked.

Jack responded with a small nod, while Lauren gave me a small frown. "I can't go," she mumbled, "I have a drama club meeting today that I have to go to; I didn't make it to the last one so I definitely have to go to this one."

I wrinkled my nose slightly but then nodded my head nonetheless. "Do you want us to bring you back something for lunch?"

Lauren shook her head as she hitched her bag higher onto her shoulder. "They ordered us some deli sandwiches for the meeting." She explained. "I'd better get going before I'm late for it."

"Alright, see you later then." I sighed.

Lauren said her goodbyes to us, and then turned around to disappear back into the crowd. Sighing quietly, I turned to the boys, asking them with my look if they were ready to go. They seemed to be able to read my look, because they turned around without another word, leading the way toward the parking lot. Along the way I kept to myself until we got to the last wing before the parking lot, where Jack held back a little until we were walking side by side.

"Are you okay today, Vinnie?" He asked.

"Yeah," I replied, "I'm fine. Why?"

"You just seem kind of quiet." He said, shrugging his shoulders.

"Oh," I mumbled, "I just had kind of a rough day in welding. I have this plan to make a sort of outdoor patio set for my mom and dad, but we didn't have any of the materials in the metal shed so instead I had to give some freshman boys a crash course on how to use the TIG welder. And then Loncar had me throw some prefabricated pieces together for him and I cut my hand." I whined, holding my right hand up to show Jack the deep cut I had on my palm.

Jack whistled lowly and took my hand gently in his, holding it up higher so he could get a closer look at it. "Vinnie, did you clean that out thoroughly?" He asked. "It can get infected. Hell, you may even need stitches for it."

"No stitches." I mumbled. "It'll be fine. It's not really that deep actually; it just looks like it because I have fat little hands."

Jack frowned at my hand, and then up at me before he looked back to the cut. "I'm almost tempted to skip lunch and take you to the hospital so your mom can look at your hand." He insisted. "It doesn't look good."

"Jack, I don't want to go to the hospital." I sighed.

"Vinnie's scared to death of hospitals." Alex spoke up before Jack had time to protest.

"Why?" Jack asked quizzically.

"Because," I huffed, "every time I go in there, there's always someone who gets rushed into the trauma center. I hate being around that. I know that I'm a mortal being who could be living her last day; I don't want to go there and be reminded of it."

Jack's questioning stare soften up, as did his grip on my hand, though he never released it. "We don't have to go to the hospital your mom works at." He said. "We'll take you some place that doesn't have a trauma center how about? That way you don't have to worry about being reminded of anything."

"Jack, it'll be fine." I insisted.

"Vinnie, you can get tetanus." Jack pointed out. "Let us take you somewhere to get it looked at."

Staring at Jack's insistent look, I sighed heavily and then nodded my head, admitting to my defeat. "Fine." I mumbled. "But you do realize that this means we're not going to have enough time to make it to lunch afterward." I pointed out.

Jack opened his mouth to reply, but Alex beat him once again. "You know what, I think I'm just gonna stay here for lunch."

Having not expected him to say that, I tore my eyes from Jack's persistent look and eyed him. "But you've been talking about this restaurant for the past two weeks." I said. "Why don't you want to go now?"

Alex shrugged his shoulders and then reached up, brushing his fingers through his hair to straighten it back out seeing as how the wind had just messed it up. "I actually have detention today." He admitted. "I was going to ditch, but ... " he trailed off, shrugging his shoulders. "You two go ahead. Get your hand taken care of Vinnie, and then afterward you two can go get lunch together."

"Alex, there's no time for us to - "

"There is if you don't plan on coming back today." He laughed quietly.

"I can't ditch class, Alex, if I ditch class I can't practice today."

"Today's Friday, babe," he winked, "you don't have practice today. Besides, you have a fucking cut on the palm of your hand, you can't play with that today."

Thinking to myself, I let my eyes linger on him for a few more seconds before I turned back to Jack only to find him to be looking at Alex, giving him a look that I wasn't quite able to read. Clearing my throat slightly, Jack finally turned to look at me, his eyes lighting up with a tiny hint of mischief as he watched me.

"I actually haven't ditched a single class all year." He admitted. "I think it's about time for me to do so."

"Ooo, ditching class so you can take me to get my hand stitched up." I teased. "Sounds amazingly fun; I bet everyone will be so jealous when you tell them were you were."

Jack eyed me momentarily, "you'd be surprised," he muttered more to himself than to me as he turned to look at Alex. "Alright, well, I guess we'll see you tomorrow or something."

"Alright, later guys." Alex replied.

"Cade is hosting a Halo 2 party tomorrow afternoon." I told him as I handed him his jacket. "You should stop by and check it out."

Alex nodded his head as he put his coat back on. "Sure." He said. "Goodbye Vinnie."

"Bye Alex." I whispered softly. I'm not sure as to whether or not he had heard me, though, because his footsteps were quick, and the wind had started to pick up again. I watched him walk away and then disappear around the corner of the building before I turned my attention back to my company.

Jack stood there, eyeing me with his brown stare, looking as if he were unsure how to proceed. He bit his lip slightly, and an eyebrow furrowed ever so slightly in frustration when he remembered my 'injured' hand. Reaching into his pocket with his free hand, he pulled out a couple of pieces of tissue paper and placed them over my cut before he wrapped his hand around mine, holding the tissues in place.

"Jack!" I gasped. "Are those - "

"They're clean," he sighed, "come on, let's get you taken care of."

Not really having any other choice, I let Jack lead me the rest of the way to the parking lot, where he then insisted on giving him my keys so that he could drive me. Even after I had handed over my keys, and was seated comfortably in the passenger seat of my car, Jack continued to fuss around with my hand, mumbling words like 'infected' and 'bacteria'. For some reason, though, I didn't mind his ramblings. I honestly didn't mind him fussing over me; it was nice to be fussed over for a change.

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

"Jack," I sighed, causing him to stop what he was doing to look at me, "we're crazy."

In response, Jack laughed softly and then gave me a teasing smile. "You're just now figuring that out?"

"I guess I've known it all along," I joked, "but just haven't realized it until just now. I mean ... it's freezing balls outside, and here we are sitting here, a cup of hot chocolate in one hand while the other is holding an ice cream cone."

"So what," Jack grinned, "ice cream is good, even if it is freezing balls out."

"Hmm, true." I agreed. I reached over and made a move to pick up my hot chocolate, but winced slightly when the motion made my hand contort in a certain way, twisting my three stitches about. Seeing my reaction, Jack lowered his drink, and stared at me in concern.

"Vinnie, are you - "

"I'm fine, Jack," I replied softly, "I just tweaked it a little bit."

"Oh," he mumbled. "Is that topical starting to wear off now?"

"Yeah, a little." I replied.

With that, we both finished off our 'treats' in silence and then Jack got up, holding a hand out to help me to my feet. I shyly slipped my hand into his, and stood up, my eyes lingering on Jack's only momentarily before I glanced around the small café. Jack didn't say anything else, but rather led me outside and away from the confinements of the building. I breathed in deeply, inhaling the crisp air rather than the various smells that had been confined in the café.

As Jack and I started to walk hand in hand along the sidewalk, I couldn't help but smile at the thought of how fun our day had been. True, we spent the first hour and a half at the urgent care, getting my hand stitched up, but after that things started to look up. I've never really spent this much time alone with Jack. I mean, sure we'd go to movies together, and grab some lunch here and there, but it's never be just him and me, all day, with nothing to do but wander around the town, resisting the urge to get into trouble.

Jack was fun to be with, he was a sweetheart, he was just about as big as a goof as Alex was. And still, there was something more to Jack that I've never quite seen before. Or, perhaps I have seen it, I just didn't take the time to pay more attention to it.

"So, where to now?" Jack asked quietly.

"Hmm," I paused, pulling out my cell phone so that I could check the time, "we still have time to go catch a movie." I suggested.

Jack nodded as he thought to himself. "A movie sounds good." He agreed, changing our course so that we were now heading in the direction of the nearby movie theatre.

"Jack, why do you like me?" I blurted out.

At my question, Jack's cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink and he shrugged his shoulders. "Because I think you're amazing." He whispered quietly. "You're smart, funny, sweet, you see the good in everybody and get along with everyone ... you're gorgeous, and I'm still surprised that you have a hard time swallowing the fact that anybody would be interested in you."

"You're sweet too, Jack." I said softly. "And you're so much fun to be around. I'm glad that we ditched school today."

The blood in Jack's cheeks moved elsewhere, allowing his complexion to return back to normal as a cute smile pulled across his lips. Before I knew it, Jack had leaned over, capturing my lips with his. The kiss was shy at first, but as his confidence built up, the kiss became more passionate and intense. It was all I could do to bite my lip, holding in a protest as Jack pulled away from me.

Jack didn't offer any words of explanation, but rather gave me another shy smile, and tugged my hand. I let him lead me along to the movie theatre with my heart beating wildly in my chest and millions upon millions of thoughts racing through my head. I was definitely falling for Jack, but I don't know if it was too soon for me to be doing this. I still needed time to get over Alex.