Divided

Jane's POV.

After waking up again and taking a quick shower, Frank dropped me off at my house so I could get ready for the ceremony, while Frank drove off, saying something about needing to go and do something. He didn't say what it was, and I also didn't ask. I was to submerged in my own thoughts.
The house was empty. Gerard must have gone to pick up Mikey from the airport.
For the past two months, Mikey has been backpacking all over the world. He said he needed to get away from all of this, and that he knew that I was in good hands with Frank taking care of me. I would occasionally receive postcards from the different places where Mikey was. The last one I recived was two weeks ago from somewhere in Cambodia. But now he was coming back for my ceremony.
Gerard also changed, a bit, in the course of this two months. He's a lot more considerate of me, taking my opinion into account, and regularly asking me if I was okay. He still showed the emotional range of a rock, but on the inside, I knew he cared a lot more. And when we were alone, that feeling showed. I could get him to smile a lot easily then before, and once in a while, he did crack a sarcastic joke. For Gerard, that was a HUGE improvement. Although he doesn't really like Frank (and this time, it wasn't because he was Dark, it's because he didn't think he was good enough for me, kind of a big brother protecting the baby sister sort of thing), he accepted the fact that I was happy and that Frank did treat me well.
Mikey and Gerard were, to say the least, dumbfounded and out of their minds furious when I told them the whole story about what happend between me and Andrew, and they were even more surprised to find out that he and Frank were brothers. I guess that's another reason why Gerard doesn't really care for Frank. But after reassuring them, both Mikey and Gerard gave us they're blessing for our relationship.
Of course, they had the same concerns as I did, "What will happen after the Chosing?", but we agreed that that was something to consider, only when necessary. For the time being, we needed to enjoy every little moment we had.
But the time for worrying had finally arrived. Today was the day that I would see if destiny would win, or will I be the exception to the rule.

I climbed the stairs to my bedroom like I was on my away to my execution. I opend the door and saw that Gerard has left my ceremonial dress on my bed.
It was the same dress my mother wore to her chosing. A dark grey satin long strapless dress with a same color sach on the waist, that would tie in a droopy bow on the back.
My fingers brushed the fabric feeling the softness of it. It was as simple as it could get, as were all Chosing dresses. Traditionally, the dresses would be made of white linen and we would go barefoot, but as the years went by, comfort, and of course money, took over, keeping only the simplicity aspect alive.

It it was still to early to get dressed. The ceremony would only happen at sunset, so I had a good 9 to 10 hours to spare.
I figured that reading a book, would be a good way to spend the time and to calm my nerves.
I reached the nearest shelf and chose "The Picture of Dorian Grey". I pulled the book but something fell on the floor when I did. I looked down to see a small stack of Polaroid pictures, all held together with a rubber band. I leaned down to pick it up and turned the pictures over, smiling when I saw the first one. It was a picture of me Mikey and Gerard all hugging eachother and laughing so much we had tears in our eyes. Gerard was the one taking the picture. He's arms were extended holding the camera, and Mikey and I were hugging him from behind. We all looked so young and carefree. I don't remeber when this picture was taken, or where it was taken, but we looked happy.
I turned around and sat on my bed, putting the book aside and removing the rubber band from around the pictures. Every single photo was of us. The three of us eating ice-cream, Mikey and Gerard bear hugging eachother, Gerard and me drawing something, Mikey tickeling me and me laughing so hard I was crying, me reading laying next to a lake with a big pair of sunglasses, Gerard sleeping and Mikey drawing a mustache on his face with a sharpie. The more I go through them, the more I smile.
I was so focused on the pictures, I didn't notice that Gerard and Mikey were standing on the doorway looking at me.
"What do you have there?" Gerard askes
I look up, surprised to see them there, "Uhm... Just something I found between my books..."
"Let me see." Mikey walks to the bed and sits next to me, "Oh my Earth! Where did you find this?!" He askes, with a smile on his face.
"What is it? Let me see!" Gerard walks towards us and takes the picture from Mikey's hands. Immediately a smile appears on his face. "I remeber this! We took this with that old Polaroid we bought in town! You remeber? The one we had to hide from dad!"
"Oh Gerad look at this one!" Mikey says, laughing, "Look at your hair!"
"Oh yeah? Well look at you here! You were a four eyed!" Gerard says laughing as well
"I was not!" Mikey's says punching his arm.
We stayed like this for hours, laughing and reminiscing about when we were younger and got into a lot of trouble. We talked about when we would run away before sunrise and go and watch it at the cliffs, about the countless hours Gerard would spend drawing and inventing cartoon characters based on the three of us, about the nights spent listening to music. I talked about the time I got into so much trouble with my dad, and they took the fault for me, and we were all grounded for a month, and how we spend said month fire messaging eachother back and forth.
We laughed so much that we were crying and our stomachs hurt. I was sitting on the bed, my legs folded in front of me, Mikey was laying beside me, and Gerad was sitting on the floor.
"I've missed this..." Mikey said when he finally stoped laughing and cleaned the tears from his eyes, "We haven't been like this in a long time..."
"Yeah..." Gerard sighed, "Growing up did took its toll on all of us... Me in particular..."
"Gee you shouldn't be so hard on yourself..." I said
"It's the truth Jane... Look at everything that's happend, you leaving to go to New York, Mikey and I barely speaking, you coming back into this mess, and me being to dumb to see it... Just admit it, I've turned into dad... To blinded by power and duty to see that my family needs my help and that I need it too..."
"You're not like dad Gee." Mikey spoke, "Yes, let's face it, for a long time now you've been a cold hearted son of a bitch that didn't care about anything other then himself and the name and honour of this family."
"Mikey..." I said, trying to soothe things, but he ignored me and continued,
"But you're different from dad! Underneath all that bullshit you still cared, and you still loved us. Dad never loved us."
Gerard was looking at the ground. He looked like he was about to cry. I jumped off the bed and kneeld in front of him,
"Gee... All that doesn't matter now. What matters is that we're here now, together."
"You could have died Jane..." He said, looking up at me, "You could have died and I was to blind to see the horrible things that that monster was doing to you! He... Hurt you..."
"But I didn't die. You all came to save me. You came to save me."
"Seeing that I was the one that put you in danger in the first place, I don't see how that makes everything better..."
"It does, because you saw what you did wrong and tried to fix it." I said, holding his hands, "We're here now, and that's all we'll ever need. Even if we're in relationships, and we get married and have our own families, we will always have eachother. We need to promise ourselves that!" I looked up at Mikey talking to him too, "We need to promise eachother, that no matter what happens, today or any other day, we will stick together!"
Mikey came off the bed and joined us in the floor. He placed one of his arms around my shoulders, and did the same with Gerard, "I promise."
I smiled at Mikey and we both looked at Gerard, he's eyes were filled with tears.
"I promise" I whisperd, holding Mikey's hand and Gerard's hand.
Gerard smiled and leaned to kiss my forehead and whisperd against my skin,
"I promise..."
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It was time.
I was already dressed and coming down the stairs. I left my hair down and wavy as usual and was wearing my dress, complemented with a pair of grey ballerina flats.
Mikey and Gerard were waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. They were both wearing black trousers and white shirts and black shoes.
Next to them was Frank, dressed in a similar manner, but wearing skinny jeans and a white t-shirt.
" We thought of keeping this a personal affair." Gerard said smiling at me, "You look beautiful..."
I smiled. I couldn't speak though. I felt like if I opend my mouth I was going to be sick. My head was twirling, my stomach had dragons in it! I leaned on the bannister for support before I would pass out, but Frank reached me in time and held me steady by the waist.
I looked up at him and he smiled. He stroke my cheek gently and kissed me on the lips.
"Let's get this over with shall we?" He said
"Gladly..."

Notes

Hey guys!! So today was the beginning of the new semester, and let me be the first to scream out:
BOOOOOOOORIIIIIING!!!!
Anyway, sorry I didn't post anything sooner, but I needed to organize my things.
I know this chapter is a bit of a filler and I'm sorry for that.
Next chapter will be the Chosing, I MEAN IT THIS TIME!

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a lot of love to all of you!