My Brother's Keeper

Chapter Sixteen

Jermaine and I got in the car and we sat in silence. "Have you watched the video yet?" he asked. I looked over at him. I raised my eyebrow.

"What?"
"The video. From WIllington Manor. I'm guessing you didn't watch it." I sighed.

"No, I haven't. Shit's been happening, I don't really have a way to watch it."

"What you mean?"

"My computer broke. Now my CD-ROM is stuck." I said with a huff. He looked over at me.

"Why didn't you say something? I have a laptop, stupid." I rolled my eyes.

"I didn't want to ask you for anything."

"Why? That never was a problem before." He pulled into the McDonalds parking lot. "You want something?" He asked staring at the menu.

"No thank you." He looked back at me.

"You do realize it's now 1 o'clock in the afternoon and you haven't eaten anything all day?" I looked over at the clock on the dashboard. Sure enough it was 1 o'clock.

"I'm good. I'm not hungry." I lied. Jermaine raised his eyebrow.

"You know. This whole time we've been spending time together, I never seen you eat."

"I ate when you met us up at the mall." He shook his head.

"Nah. You weren't eating we i got to the table. You weren't even eating when I was watching y'all from the door."

"You were watching us when you was at the door?" I asked Hesitantly. He bit his bottom lip.

"I gotta look around before I do shit, Victoria."

"Oh."

"What you don't like eating in front of me? I can honestly tell you I don't give a shit if you eat too fast or messy." I shook my head looking down.

"Nah. It's not that." I felt him staring at me. But he didn't say anything. He pulled up to the drive thru speaker and ordered his food. Along with a large fry and a crispy chicken sandwich, plain.

After he got the food, he handed me the sandwich and fry. Then stared at me. "What?" I asked knowing what he wanted.

"Eat the food Victoria."

"I'm not hungry."

"Victoria!" He said raising his voice slightly. "Why don't you eat? And don't give me no bullshit excuse. Tell me the real reason." I gulped looking down.

"Because I want to lose weight." I said honestly. We sat quietly for a while.

"Lose weight, for what?"

"Why do people lose weight, Jermaine?" I looked at him. He wasn't angry like I had thought he was. He looked more concerned than mad.

"You don't need to lose weight, you're great how you are." I laughed. He raised his eyebrow. "What's funny?"

"I need to lose weight, Jermaine."

"Why?"

"Because I'm overweight." Now he laughed. "What?"

"Since I've met you, you had to lost at least 15 pounds. If not more."

"You think so?"

"You didn't?"

"I don't know. I didn't weigh myself." He frowned.

"You're practically killing yourself to lose weight and you don't even know if you lost weight. What the fuck?" He scratched his head. "Eat your fucking food."