Page 18 of My Fake Date With My Childhood Friend
“And Christmas, right?” Francine asked, a twinkle in her eye.
“Yeah,” I said unenthusiastically. “Of course.”
She didn’t seem to pick up on my tone as she smiled and patted my shoulder before going to greet my mom. I took advantage of everyone being distracted by her entrance and ran upstairs. I was sure nobody would notice. As one of six children, I was used to being invisible — even when only four of us were home. Not that I minded too much. Being a middle child meant that I could get away with a lot more than I otherwise would. But sometimes, I did wish that someone would notice when I left the room or care what I said or thought beyond reminding me that it “Wasn't appropriate for young ears.” Somebody who loved me the way that Joseph claimed to.
It was a pipe dream, though. Who would want to be friends with a loser like me, right?
seven
“This hasto be in the top ten worst school lunches ever,” Liv said in disgust. She pushed her tray away with a curled lip. I was just glad I wasn't the only one who felt the same way.
“Are there any other options?” I asked. I looked over my shoulder and squinted toward the serving counter. There was only one option when I was up there, but sometimes they added a second partway into the lunch period. It was hard to see from this far away, but I didn't see anyone walking away from the counter without the gross stew the rest of us had on our plates.
“There's always more gross stew,” Liv said, and I could tell she was just as disappointed as me. “I feel like it's going to give me food poisoning. But at least it isn't the macaroni and cheese again.”
“Yeah, that was really bad last time.” I pushed my tray away from me as well and leaned back in my chair. “It seems like a feat to make it this bad, doesn't it?”
Liv and I had been complaining about our school lunch every day this week. It didn't seem to matter what we tried. It always turned out the same — disgusting. We were starting to get sick of it.
“I would kill for a burger right now,” Liv groaned.
“Maybe we should just order some food,” Alexander said.
“It's against school rules,” I said miserably. A stupid rule but one we had to follow, nonetheless.
“Who's going to bust us?” Alexander asked with a shrug. “It's that or actually going somewhere.”
“I don't suppose you have your car today?” I asked hopefully. Alexander's parents let him drive himself to school about once a week, but it wasn't a consistent enough schedule for me to keep track of it.
“Nope,” Alexander sighed.
“We could walk,” Liv suggested. “We're allowed to go out for lunch.”
“To what?” I asked. “There's nothing within walking distance. Not to mention it's freezing out.”
“Good point,” she said.
“Let's just order,” Alexander said. “Nobody has to know.”
I didn't like it, but I guess he was right. The worst that happened was that we got detention, and I would take that over food poisoning.
“Okay, let’s do it,” I said. Alexander looked around carefully and then pulled out his phone.
“So, what are we thinking?” he asked. “McDonald's?”
“Sounds good to me,” I said.
“Same here,” Liv said. “Just get me a burger and fries.”
Alexander nodded and put in the order. He glanced at me.
“You want a chicken burger, right Penny?” He asked. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.
“How did you know?” I asked. Even though we pretended to be in a relationship, we hadn't talked about ourselves much. In fact, it was a bit of a wonder that we were pulling this off as well as we were, all things considered.
“It's what you always get when we go together,” he said. I tilted my head. I couldn't think of a time that I'd gone out forfood with Alexander. While he and I did get along well, we never hung out away from school or when our families got together. “After ten years of being the one to get fast food for all of us when the adults mess up Christmas Eve dinner, I've gotten pretty good at remembering your order.”
Ah, right. My mom and Alexander's mom had been best friends since college and were actually roommates for three years, and that hadn't gotten any better at cooking since then. They were always insistent that they had to make Christmas Eve dinner together, just the two of them like they had back then, and nine times out of ten, it failed spectacularly. Of course, I'd noticed that Alexander always went with one of our dads or brothers to get the replacement food, but I had no idea he'd memorized my order. It seemed like something I would do — but then, I'd been harbouring a crush on Alexander since we were kids. Of course, I remembered small details about him. I just didn't understand why he would remember details about me.
