Hunger

f o r t y

We walk down the hallway, his fingers between mine. My hand was sweating, but he didn't say anything about it, or he just didn't care. My heart was beating a thousand miles per hour and I wasn't sure if I was ready for this.

"You don't have to do this if you don't want to." He says, stopping in front of the door.

A few people were in the hallway too, putting stuff in their lockers or waiting for their friends to join them, and I felt jealous of them. If my anxiety didn't make me doubt doing stuff, things would be easier. Like eating lunch with people for an instance, what's so hard about it? Is just sitting in a table with other human beings and eating food, nothing out of the ordinary, but for me it was more than that.

My thoughts were always bothering me, and the what ifs and maybes took the best of me. I'm aware that nobody will judge me or think I'm fat, but some part of me still thinks that's the only thing in their heads.

"I have to." I whisper with half a smile. "If I don't do it now, I'm never doing it." I add shrugging.

"Okay." He says with a smile. "But remember, if you want to leave, we can go to the library or the field and eat alone."

I nod, gripping his hand harder. He opens the door, and we both take a step inside the cafeteria. The smell of food quickly filled my nostrils and everyone's eyes were on us. Some people turned back to their eating and conversations quickly after they looked at us, but some were still staring, making me feel uncomfortable. I tried my best to ignore them, and we both made our way to the line.

I was staring at the food, wanting to eat it because frankly I was hungry, but scared to. I was struggling to choose between a chicken salad, sushi or fruit salad, but I didn't know which to pick. I look at the pizza and burgers too, but I knew I couldn't choose that for sure. Sometimes I wonder if I'm truly better, because there are foods that I still can't bring myself to eat.

"What are you eating?" Nate asks picking up a tray.

"I don't know." I say doing the same as him. "Probably sushi." I whisper looking at the different types of sushi.

He grabs a burger and puts it in his tray, along with an apple and some carrots.

"Coach wants us to eat healthy." He says with a smile. "But we both know I can't live without burgers." He jokes grabbing a water bottle.

"Or pizza." I add, grabbing a plate of sushi and a water bottle too. I decided to grab a banana too, to make my tray look less empty.

He laughs and nods, making his way to his usual table, and that's when reality hit me. My chest started hurting and I wanted to leave, but I had to conquer my fear and go with him. So, I did, even though it felt like my heart was going to give out any moment now.

I look at the table, it had six people sitting there. Four guys from the football team and two girls. I recognize one of the guys, Alec, Christopher's best friend and I frown, wondering where Christopher actually was, but was glad he wasn't here. The last thing I need is for him to say something inappropriate in front of them, or boss me around about eating, or look at Nate the wrong way.

We finally get there and all of them turn to look at me, a smile on their face. At least they weren't staring at me rudely like a few others, Melanie's friends for an instance.

"Katherine, right?" A girl, I recognized since we take Chemistry together, says politely.

I nod, and she smiles, showing two dimples on her face. "Nate has told us a lot about you."

"Don't start." Nate says glaring at her.

"He has?" I say with a small frown, wondering what he said.

"Is the truth." Another dude says, and I turn to look at him. He had blonde hair and green eyes, the typical guy you would see on a movie or tv show. "You're the reason why he never has time for us." He adds jokingly. "Never wants to go out, because he rather be with you."

I look at Nate and both his cheeks are red as a rose, making me smile. He tends to blush when he is embarrassed, and it was really cute, at least for me.

"It's quite annoying." Alec says laughing. "You can come with him when we invite him to places, if you want to."

Everyone else in the table agrees with him, and I shrug telling them maybe next time I will. I don't know where they go or what they do when they "hang", since I truly didn't know them at all. I don't know what anyone here, 'rich kids', do for fun. When I came new here, I became friends with Eva and Jer, since basically everyone else hated me, and they didn't do anything special. We actually never went out, other than their place or the movies maybe once.

They start talking about another topic soon after, and continue eating, which made me feel a little better about eating too. I grab my chopsticks and grabbed a roll of sushi, dipping it on soy sauce and quickly putting it in my mouth. No one was looking at me and I chew it slowly, savoring the awesome flavor I've missed so much.

Nate grabs my hand under the table, and I smile at him, swallowing the food.

We continue talking, and even I talk occasionally, saying something related to the topic or agree with the girls when they boy started making fun of us or didn't agree with our opinion.

Alec would look at me occasionally, and I would think about that day, what he said about me looking sick. Did I look better now? I wonder looking at him from the corner of my eye. Not to mention that it made me feel uneasy knowing that he knew what happened between Chris and me. I hope he's the only person Christopher ever told that to.

The bell rang, and we all stand up to go back to class. For the first time in weeks lunch felt like it went by quickly, like it was normal. I throw away my leftovers with Nate and we go back to the hallway, our hands together once again.

It felt nice doing this, being okay, and even though there still were people that would give us dirty looks or judge us, I didn't care. No matter what I did people were going to judge me either way, so I might as well live life like I want to, is not like the things they are saying are true anyways or define me.