in my veins | jason dilaurentis [discontinued]

thirteen

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

"Oh, they've made some nice changes to the menu, haven't they?" Jessica DiLaurentis chuckled slightly, grinning and glancing up at the five girls surrounding her and then shifting her focus onto the blonde. "Hanna, what are you gonna order?"

Hanna looked up in surprise before smiling at the older woman, "Um, Chinese chicken salad."

"Alison's favorite," Mrs. DiLaurentis recalled, the statement adding to the awkward atmosphere surrounding them.

The girls all glanced at each other uncomfortably before Spencer decided to speak up. "You must be really happy that Jason's moved back," the brunette smiled from her seat directly on the left of Ali's mom.

"Happy?" The woman sighed, setting her drink down, "I don't even think of that as our house anymore."

"Actually, we all thought Jason moving back was kind of odd," Emily added, gaining a weird look from Arabella who had constantly expressed her disagreement with both Spencer and Emily's thoughts on Jason.

Mrs. DiLaurentis nodded, "Jason came into family money. And it's his choice what to do with it." Arabella could've sworn the woman had spared her a glance before moving on to her next comment. "He definitely marches to his own drummer. Both of my kids do. Did."

Then the awkwardness retuned and all of the girls were left to glance between each other once again. Arabella couldn't imagine what it was like for Ali's mom. She didn't really know much about the woman but Jessica clearly cared about her daughter. None of the five girls had seen much of the woman since Ali's disappearance, and they hadn't really ever tried to get in touch with her either. But Arabella did feel terribly for Mrs. DiLaurentis after losing her child so suddenly.

"You know what? I was gonna wait until after lunch but..." Jessica said suddenly, trailing off as she got up and headed directly for Arabella's seat at the other end of the table. "Now I'm thinking, 'Why wait?'"

The woman reached down to pick up some boxes that were on the floor by Arabella's feet. Arabella hadn't paid much attention to them, but now she wondered what was in them. Jessica handed them around, walking away with two other boxes to hand to Spencer and Aria while gesturing for Arabella to grab the two remaining ones, take one for herself and then hand the other one to Emily.

The girls all opened the boxes to see a dress, dresses that looked all too familiar. Arabella's mouth opened slightly as she eyed the white dress in the box sitting right in front of her, all of them not sure how to react to them. The brunette made eye contact with Spencer, but looked back down at the dress when the Hastings girl just shrugged.

"Did Ali ever show you these?" Mrs. DiLaurentis asked the girls with a wide smile on her face, the girls staying quiet as they thought back to the memory.

"I know you liked this one, Em," Alison grinned, turning around to face the five girls sat in her bedroom, besides Emily who was standing. "Don't I look hot?"

Emily smiled, eyeing the blonde with a grin as she showed off the dress she was wearing, "Those feathers are really pretty."

Hanna reached down and grabbed a dress from a bag. "This stretch-side is to die," she grinned, looking up at Alison. "Can I try it on?"

Alison looked down at Hanna, almost empathetically, "There's not that much stretch." Hanna looked down sadly and Arabella and Aria rolled their eyes, but Ali ignored them both and picked up another dress, holding it up for the girls to see. "It's a nice haul, right? All one of a kind and all mine," she glanced at the dress and a smile appeared on her face as she looked over all the girls. "Just like you guys."