The Three Of Us

Chapter Nineteen

                                                                                      Ronnie

  According to The Oxford Dictionary of Current English, the definition of ‘family’ is: a set of relations, parents and children. In the Non-Existent Ronnie Messer Dictionary of Current Slang, the definition for that word is: something that you have or had. You could have had family in your life, but you either left them or they left you. And sometimes, it’s even both.

  To most people when you lose family, you can’t get it back. Well, I’m not like most people. Because I think that you can lose family, but you can also find it again.

  So, this is what a real family dinner felt like. I didn’t exactly know how to describe this. I didn’t know how to describe this at all.

  Once it started to get late, the Morrisons’ inviting me to supper. Since my foster mother wasn’t the best cook in the world, I figured that having something good to eat for once would actually be fun. We were now sitting at their big round table, spaghetti being passed around.

  I felt a little weird eating with a family. Whenever I eat supper at my house I usually just run off into my room to eat. I don’t want to have to deal with Cory and his stupid constant insults. When I don’t eat at my own house, I’m usually at some fast food restaurant or at Ray’s. At Ray’s we usually order a pizza and then head down into her basement and watch horror movies. Thinking about it, I realized that this really was my first time eating at a dinner table with a family.

  “So… Ronnie,” Mrs. Morrison said, trying out my name. “It’s Ronnie, is it?”

  “Yes,” I replied after I shoved some spaghetti into my mouth. This may be my first dinner with a family, no one ever said that it was going to change the way I acted when it came to eating.

  “Short for Veronica, right?” Mr. Morrison asked me.

  I looked down at my lap and murmured a tiny, “Yeah…” I could hear Asher and Avery chuckling together. I suddenly apprehended that this was the first time that my two friends had ever heard of my real name. When I had first started becoming friends with them I had planned for them to just called me ‘Ronnie’ for as long as possible.

  “Veronica,” Avery said very slowly. “I thought it was just Ronnie.”

  My head shot up and I narrowed my green eyes at him. “And it will stay ‘just Ronnie’ from now on, Avery.” I eyed him and Asher, who he was sitting next to.  “If either of you ever call me Veronica, this fork right here-” I motioned towards the fork in my hand. “-Will be going somewhere you really don’t want it to go.”

  That shut them up.

  A moment of silence passed. I actually appreciated it because it gave me time to eat my delicious spaghetti. This was by far the best meal I ever tasted in my life time. The tomato sauce was perfect and rich and the noodles were beyond perfection. Yum.

  “Well Ronnie,” Mrs. Morrison said, trying to start a conversation with me once more. “Tell us about yourself!”

 I swallowed my huge bite of Italian amazingness and started on my life story. I wasn’t afraid to tell people about myself. “Well, my parents gave me up for adoption when I was a toddler. I was tossed from foster home to foster home because I guess I wasn’t exactly suitable for those families. Right now I’m with hanging at the Messers’, and I guess they’re alright. I’ve been there for quite awhile so I think they may even keep me. Make them their own, you know?” I waved my fork around as I spoke to them, causing sauce to hit my clothes. “At the moment though I just enjoy hanging with my friends and playing pranks on girls with heels bigger than their arms.”