For Dinner, Harper prepared a healthy mix of baked sweet potato, a small portion of rice, and a piece of baked chicken. While Harper mushed up some of her sweet potato and played airplane with little baby Hunter, Piper pushed the vegetable around her plate. It wasn’t that she was a picky eater. There had been times when a full plate with three different courses on it would have seemed like a feast in the Black household. But the last year of eating junk food had destroyed her pallet and left this all seeming...unsatisfying. But then her stomach growled, and she must have wolfed things down in a minute or two. The next thing Piper remembered, she was heading out the door, and checking out her wallet.
One upshot to her diet was, at least she had some money from cutting back on eating out. That was nice. She could still have fun tonight, even if she didn’t want to go to a party. Especially with fifty bucks burning a hole in her wallet. At least she could get fucked up. She texted her dealer.
“Yo, you available tonight.”
“Yeah totally. U want something? I’m hanging out at Burger Binge.”
Ugh. Piper rolled her eyes. This diet was such shit. Why was she hanging out at Burger Binge, where she’d be tempted?
Even worse, when she got there, she saw no sign of her dealer, Max, so she just had to awkwardly hang out by the entrance for like, 15 minutes, smelling the deep fryers until her knees started to hurt. Pot wasn’t worth this.
“I’m at Burger Binge, where are you?”
“Oh, I’m out back!”
Okay...Piper headed around back and Max climbed out of the dumpster. Max was a tall, lanky girl a few years older than Piper. They’d hung out in high school, which made Piper feel cool, because she was a senior, and Piper was a freshman. Max was the one that showed her the ropes on cutting class and all other kinds of slacker activities. Right now, she was bearing two plastic garbage bags like they were prizes.
"Hey Piper! Check it out! Total freebies here!”
“Do I want to know?” Piper groaned.
“Stale hamburger buns!” Max said anyway, she held the bag open for Piper to see. She was proud of herself. “They were just throwing them away. Why does anyone buy anything?”
“I don’t know...maybe no one wants to just eat stale hamburger buns for dinner, Max?” Piper said with a heavy shrug.
“That's the beauty of it. Burger Binge also gives you all the free ketchup packets you want!” Max reached into the pocket of her skinny jeans and pulled one out, causing a dozen more to spill out at her feet. “They give you everything you need for a free meal. How does this place stay in business? You want one? It's my treat.” Max said, with a smile as she squirted a ketchup packet on an old bun. It sputtered and sprayed a wet mess over the dry bread.
Piper was ready to refuse, when her stomach growled again. Things went...not black, but vague. It was like watching a clip show. She knew she didn’t pass out, but everything seemed...distant. She leaned forward to bite into the ketchup burger, without using her hands but...she bit of more than she could chew. Bread, Ketchup and...a little bit of blood got into her mouth, restoring her senses.
She stumbled away horrified with herself. “Oh shit, Max I am so sorry. I don’t know why I did that, I’m so stupid. Are you okay?...”
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
More by this author
