Unwind Chapter 1 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Connor Lassiter and his girlfriend, Ariana, do typical teenage things like staring into each other's eyes, smooching, and planning to run away from home to avoid being sentenced to death by their parents.
While many teens are melodramatic, in Connor's world, this threat is real. He's an "Unwind" (1.1.9), a teen who will undergo an unexplained procedure that will dismantle him. His body parts will then be donated to others.
This society doesn't consider this death. They think this is a way for kids to go on living.
Connor would like to remain in one piece, thank you very much, so he and Ariana plan on going AWOL.
When the night comes, Ariana is MIA on the whole AWOL thing, leaving Connor all by his lonesome.
She tells him she won't go with him, so Connor sneaks into an 18-wheeler at a truck stop by himself.
The trucker discovers him, but because he was the recipient of a limb from an Unwind, he decides not to turn Connor into the police. Paying it forward, if you will. Connor sits in the back of the truck and cries. "He's not sure who he's crying for […] for himself, for Ariana" (1.1.111), for Argentina. Who knows?
The police catch them anyway and arrest the trucker and Connor.
But when the police car almost collides with another vehicle and slides off the road, Connor manages to jump out of the car and run.