The Boy Fishing On The Moon

7.

It was the night of a first quarter.

 The boy shoved a handful of fries in his mouth.

He grabbed a handful of chicken nuggets in the other hand. 

"Stop eating so fast!" The mother reached over the table and dropped the chicken nuggets in his hand. The boy continued chewing as if he hasn't been feed in a week and looked down at his food.

"Why are you so hungry, didn't you have lunch at school today?"  The mother asked and the boy stayed quiet looking his chicken sand which.

The boy really didn't go to lunch but spent the period in the bathroom too anxiety ridden to have eaten.

"Yeah I did." The boy said. "The food was just bad so I didn't finish." 

The mother stayed staring at the boy with her mascara did eyes almost popping out her sockets. The boy got a glance of her before looking back down to pick a chicken nugget.

"Well lunch food is bad. I remember I used to leave school for lunch." His mother said smiling and the boy finally looked up to her. He saw the joy flourish up her cheeks. 

"You would leave school?" The boy repeated, feeling the joy was contagious.

"Sometimes." The mother said, even though the look on her face meant 'a lot'. 

"Your school let you do that?" The boy asked and she just looked up at him, smirking and she looked away. The boy smiled with his mouth open thinking about his mother going against rules.

"And you never got in trouble?" 

The boy stared at his mother and she smiled, shaking her head while putting a fork full of salad in her mouth.

"Mom, I didn't know you were a bad kid." The boy said.

"I was not a bad kid!" The mother exclaimed in denial. 

"I mean, I was a teenager. Teenagers do things and sometimes they feel guilty for it even years after so you don't always win." 

The boy stared up at her. The word multiplied in his head.

"Guilty?" 

"You've seen court shows honey, you know what guilty means." The mother said but the boy tried to quickly scavenger through his pea brain for the definition.

And nothing.

"Is it when someone likes doing bad things?" The boy asked. The mother smiled at him.

"No, well, no. It's not that the person always likes to do bad things on purpose, guilt is a feeling, if you feel it you feel guilty. You did a bad thing and you know it was bad and you don't feel good about it happening."