Part of Me

05

05

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"Never be a prisoner of the past, it was just a lesson not a life sentence."
-Unknown

MARY and I exhaled a breath of relief as the door swung shut. We waited for the sound of the car screeching before turning to each other and all but jumping up and down. To say that we were excited about having a night to ourselves was a major understatement.

Jason and Diane were having a date night which basically just consisted of them going to some restaurant before going straight to a bar and coming home drunk at one in the morning. They did it every so often, leaving me in charge of the kids for the night, but it seemed that the universe was finally cutting me a break. I was caught up on all of my schoolwork, so I didn't have to do that, and Mary reached into her back pocket and produced two twenty dollar bills.

My eyes widened. "Oh, my God! Where did you get that?"

"Father," she said bitterly before smirking smugly, "seems to have lost it. I graciously found it for him. I just didn't tell him." She winked, clearly amused, but I felt like I was going to vomit. "Relax, Dev. He'll never know. He had like three hundred dollars in his wallet. Besides, don't forget that the state is literally paying him that money to take care of us, which includes dinner."

"Mary, I—"

"There's a diner up the road. We'll be back long before them and he'll never notice. If he does, I'll take the fall and say I spent it on makeup or something."

I gave her a look, telling her there was no way I would let her take the fall for it.

"Please, Dev. I need to eat a meal somewhere that doesn't reek of smoke and beer. We have enough money for dinner for all four of us."

Sighing, I took a look at the two kids who were sitting on the living room floor coloring. "Alright."

"Yes! Carter, Beatrice, get your coats. We're taking a class field trip."

• • •

"Whoa," Beatrice breathed as we walked into the diner.

It was a fairly lively place. The complete opposite of the house with all of the bright neon signs saying stuff like open and best coffee and burgers. There was even one with the Ford symbol on it. Almost every inch of the dull wallpaper was covered with some sort of sign or plaque or family picture. There was a bar in the center of the diner with booths scattered all around it. Waiters and waitresses were practically tripping over each other to get to their tables in a timely manner and I nearly laughed when the cook shouted at them to be more careful.

A perky waitress came barreling our way, sending Carter and Beatrice hiding behind mine and Mary's legs. When she stood in front of us, she froze, her eyes going to my collarbone, which held a long jagged scar from my first year in the foster home. I cleared my throat and she looked back at us. She smiled softly and said, "Booth or bar?"

"Booth, please," I managed.

She nodded and led us to one by a window. I let Carter slide in before me and Mary did the same with Beatrice on the other side. The waitress handed us two kids menus and two regular ones, asking what we wanted to drink.

"Milk for the kids, water for us, please," Mary told her.

The waitress wrote it down on a notepad, though how you could forget something that simple was beyond me, and skipped away to give us time to look at the menu.