Zachary

Chapter Thirteen

Hey dollface. Fancy meetin' you here.

So glad you could make it.

Here's a brand new chapter, hot, right of the grill.

Yum.

xo.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

I felt it hit my head before I could even process what it was.

'           I watched as the floppy, yellow french fry fell limply to the floor. My head shot around and shot death glares at the thrower who merely smirked and threw his hands up in surrender. As hard as I tried to fight it, my lips curled into a smile.

            Zach winked at me and stuck a french fry in his mouth. I rolled my eyes and turned back around to focus on the job at hand.

            Lunch duty was almost as tedious as its morning counterpart. Person after person filed in and I did my best to supply each of them with a spoonful of mashed potatoes.

            I was jealous of Zach. He was in charge of the french fries, so it was terribly easy for him to sneak a few as he worked. It was a little bit more difficult to sneak tastes of the mashed potatoes, and I was starving.

            Before we had started working, I had complained to Zach about this. He promised he would give me a few fries when he got a chance. So, when he threw the fry at me, I guess he was fulfilling his commitment. Honestly, it wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, but I couldn’t be angry. We really hadn’t established the means by which he was to give me the fries. He was doing his part, and that was all that mattered.

            A woman walked in front of me, plate outstretched in one hand and a baby in her other, clinging onto her. The baby was crying hysterically and the mom was desperately trying to quiet him. His hair was in a big knot on his head and his face had flecks of dirt on it. His clothes were ripped and stained and he looked tired and hungry.

            The mother looked helpless.

            Her tired eyes shot pleas to her infant son. The lines and wrinkles on her face were premature for her age, and she looked like a withered flower, once beautiful but long since uncared for.

            I scooped an extra serving of mashed potatoes on her plate and she silently thanked me with her eyes as she walked away, her son still screaming in her arms.

            The next person to walk up to me was a man who couldn’t be more than thirty years old.

            Tattoos lined both of his arms and his neck and his baggy clothes draped heavily over his scarily skinny frame. His arms looked like sticks and his face was drawn and pale. A walking skeleton.

            In the beginning, I was scared when I saw the type of people that walked past me. But, in a way, I had grown accustomed to it. It no longer frightened me but filled me with a kind of strange sadness that was unbearable.

            The man was deathly silent and took his mashed potatoes without a speck of emotion on his face. His eyes lacked life and he glided away, like a wisp of smoke.

            As my eyes warned of oncoming tears, I looked down and noticed that my mashed potatoes were running dangerously low.

             I started to step my way around the ducks on the floor to get to the mircowave.