Then It Hits Me

Chapter 13: Things You Can Do On Swings

"Aren't you a bit too dresses up to be at McDonald's?" the McDonald's cashier asks us skeptically, "If you're looking for Hanes' Dinery, it's the first building after the right turn."

Everyone is looking at us. Or I think that everyone is. There was a little boy who touched my dress when we walked in and had this confused look plastered all over his little face. I feel like I'm in school again and everyone is talking about me behind my back.

"Is it your job to give us food or to judge us based on our clothing?" Miller sounds more irritable than usual.

The cashier grimly takes our order, making it obvious that he isn't too pleased with Miller's remark. He probably made us wait extra long because the three people behind us got their food first, even the lady with five kids. 

Taking a bite of his McChicken, Miller sighs happily, "I'm so glad we decided to ditch salads and opt for this super unhealthy, yet amazing foods."

I lift up the top slice of bread of my McDouble burger and slowly peel the cheese off, making sure that I have taken all of the cheese off. Next, I wipe the beef patty with a napkin just to be safe. This is what I have to do every time I get basically any burger that I will actually like at McDonald's.

"Wow what a waste Caitlin," Miller exclaims at the piece of cheese on the napkin.

"It's either that or my lactose intolerance and I think you know which one I chose," I take a bite of my cheese-less burger, "The doctor says that I have some weird severe case of lactose intolerance that's not quite milk allergy, so I should be very careful."

He picks up the cheese from my napkin and sniffs it, "What'll happen if you eat this piece of cheese?"

"Bad things."

"Like...?"

I shake my head, "Throwing up like a maniac and becoming fat."

Miller chokes on his coke because of his uncontrollable laughter. It takes him a while for him to cough it out and I ignore him the whole time, but when he's done he looks like he's just finished watching a Jennifer Lawrence interview.

"Okay, now you have to eat it," he passes me the slice of cheese, but I immediately push it away, not wanting a re-run of what happened in eighth grade. "Thanks but no thanks."

How could I not remember Caitlin's Eighth Grade Barf in HD? That's really when I started to get suspicious of who Ella really was.

It happened during a perfectly normal school day of a middle school girl. The only thing different about the day was that it was Ella's birthday. Of course, being the attention loving girl she is, Ella brought cupcakes. It was my old friend, Charlotte who reminded me that I couldn't eat milk. I asked Ella if her cupcakes contained milk and she said ever-so-sweetly that she made one especially for me that used a milk alternative. Long story short, I ended up in the ER after the mass amount of stomach liquid I threw up.

Still, to this day, I do not know why Ella did it. I was such a pushover then, that I let the whole affair go. That summer, Ella let rats into Char's house, forcing her to move far away. Yet, I still kept being her friend?

To be honest, I'm feeling like the stupidest person in the world. Ella was basically giving me signs to cut our friendship line, but I never got the message. Instead, I knit us together even tighter.

After finishing our meal, we head to the chocolate factory. Miller has to search on is GPS for at least 15 minutes before we take off. We're supposed to be there in 20 minutes. By the time we've driven for half an hour, I've already lost pretty much all my patience.