Limited

When Kordell got to his stop, he dashed home and to his surprise, his mom was out on the front porch, rocking back and forth in her chair, drinking what appeared to be a glass of lemonade.

"How was your day?" she asked. "Do you have any words left?"

Kordell said nothing and then rushed upstairs to his room and slammed the door. He sat down and began playing Halo: Combat Evolved on his Xbox 360. About 20 minutes into the game, his phone started ringing to the sound of the "Baby Bottle Pop" theme song. It was one of his old friends who he hadn't spoken to in a while. Despite knowing he had nearly zero words left, he paused the game and put down his controller to answer the call.

"Hello," he said, in a bemused tone. What could Bryant possibly want? he wondered.

"Hey, it's Bryant! Is everything all right? I noticed you didn't say a word all day. That must be some kind of record for you!" said Bryant, chuckling. "You'd better be careful, or you'll have to start paying for your words."

Kordell didn't dare breath a word.

"Anyway, do you wanna maybe go to the park tomorrow after school?"

Kordell stood there blankly for about 30 seconds.

"Hello, are you there?"

Just when Bryant had given up, Kordell responded with, "sure!"

"Ok cool, we can discuss this more tomorrow, see you then!"

Kordell was the first to hang up the phone, he hoped he would have more words tomorrow, considering he now only had one left and didn't want to waste it. He couldn't afford to pay for more, especially since his mom hardly made any money working at the diner. Kordell always wondered how they survived on so little, but he had no idea how much his mom truly had to sacrifice for them.