Skinny • Book 1 In The Reality Series

Katy

My eyes welling with tears I stared down at Calum's most recent message, 'I need you.'

I wondered if he was okay. I wanted to tell him that I was. That I'd found Sam, that we were together.

I wanted to tell him that Ashton had picked us up but instead of taking us to his house we kept driving. We passed the several hotels in town which I figured would be our destination, we passed the welcome to Heck Ville sign and then two hours later we'd passed the large sign welcoming visitors to your state.

I had no idea where we were going, or where we were, some small dinner in a pimple sized town.

I wanted to tell Calum that I was sorry I hadn't said a proper goodbye. I wanted to tell him I'd be back at some point. I wanted to tell him thank you, for everything he'd ever done over the course of our short but amazing friendship and what it meant to me, but Ashton had told me not to reply, to anyone.

"Are you going to eat?" he questioned, pulling me from my thoughts.

Blinking rapidly, I looked across the table to him, and shook my head.

"All you ate yesterday was a fruit salad from the gas station." He pointed out, halfheartedly drawing a random x on the tic-tac-toe grid, which Sam was studying intently.

"I'm not hungry."

Frowning, he ran his fingertips through his hair, "You look smaller."

An overwhelming feeling of pride and hope bubbling up in my chest I felt the corners of my mouth turn up into a smile, "Really?"

"Yeah." He said slowly, eyeing me wearily, "You look, I don't know, gaunt or some shit. Sick."

"I don't feel sick." I lied, even though my stomach felt like it was in nots and my head was pounding, "I feel great!"

"I know what you're doing." He informed me, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one was listening, "You need to eat, or the only size you'll be going down will be your coffin."

"You're being melodramatic." I scoffed, my mood lifting.

"Daddy!" Sam snapped, smacking Ashton's arm, "I hungry."

Sighing, Ashton reached out and picking up the ketchup bottle residing on the table, squeezed a puddle of it onto Sam's napkin and handed him a spoon.

Repulsed, I watched as Sam eagerly at the stuff like pudding.

"Back to what I was saying." Ashton sighed, turning back to me, "You need to eat."

I nodded.

"What are you ordering?" he pressed as the waitress rounded the corner, our drinks in hand.

"I'll eat lunch." I answered.

"This is brunch."

"I'll get dinner then."

"Katy you will eat now."

"You can't make me."

"I will force feed you a foot high stack of pancakes if you don't order something."

My eyes widening I looked down at my menu as my glass of water was set down in front of me.

"Thank you." Ashton said kindly, dumping a packet of sugar into his coffee.

"You guys know what you want to eat?" our waitress questioned, pulling a pen from her brittle, hair spray saturated hair.

"Pancakes!" Sam said eagerly, his mouth circled by a ring of ketchup.