"Pia! Want to hang out with me and some friends after school? We're all going over to my place, my parents said it's okay." Lately I had noticed that Dalton spent more time with his other friends then with me, even though he said we were best friends. He lived just up the road from me so we always saw each other in the weekends and sometimes during school breaks but I always went to his house...I didn't want him coming to mine.

"Uhm, okay. If your parents say it's all right." Dalton nodded happily before running off to his other group of friends. It was lunch time and I was eating alone at a table, Dalton had stopped eating lunch with me too but that was because I told him to.

He was too nice to see all the other kids laughing at him behind his back whenever he ate with me. I was a poor nobody and Dalton was a somebody, he always had a smile for everyone and had nice things to say so no one ever really said bad things to his face.

I turned back to my plain lunch, an apple and two slices of buttered bread. We didn't have jelly to put on sandwiches so I had to have butter. 

My mom had a real job now but money was still tight and grocery shopping was usually done at pay day...but it had been six days since pay day and food was getting short. I kept that all to myself even though I wanted chocolate, ice cream and crisps. Junk food pig out's weren't an option.

I was thirteen and wishing I had said no to the offer, then I could go home and not feel bad about anything.