Troubles

”What do you want?” some unenthusiastic waitress asks. I only give her a glance, not wanting to give her the time of day because of her attitude.

“I’ll have a ham sandwich with extra ham,” Ray says quickly. I search the menu some more to find something I can have. I let my fingers grace against the 7 bucks I’ve got in my right pocket.

This place is crazy. First of all, the only vegetarian thing they have is a Caesar salad, and second, they charge a full 50 cents for a glass of water! Are they insane? What the fuck did the owner eat to think that he-

“Frank?” I quickly look up. Everyone are staring at me, even the bitch of a waitress.
It’s my turn to order.

“I’ll pass,” I say quickly, pulling my hands out of my pockets and putting the menu back into the holder-thingy at the end of the table.
“I’m not really hungry.” I give the waitress a glare, hoping she’ll get the point and walk away, before the guys start insisting that I’ll order something.
She turns around.

“Why not, Frank? I thought you said you were hungry before?” Ray asks, ridiculing me. I did say I was hungry, before we went in here. I thought they meant ‘let’s go eat’ as in ‘let’s find the nearest McDonalds’, but no; apparently it meant ‘let’s find the most expensive, lousiest place in this town and splurge like the rich kids we are’.
I don’t mean that. I love these guys.

“I just don’t want to spend 12 bucks on a lousy sandwich. Fuck, I don’t want to pay for fucking tap water! I thought that was what taxes were for,” I growl, careful not to lose my temper and yell at my friends.

“Alright, sorry. You could’ve just said you didn’t want to come in here,” Ray says defensively. I sigh. I don’t want to piss him off and risk losing him as a friend. He’s a good guy. A great guy, actually.

“Sorry. I just didn’t bring my wallet, so I only have 7 bucks,” I say in a hushed tone. I don’t want the people in the next booth to hear about how I don’t have the money with me to buy anything in here.

“Oh, you could’ve just told us,” Gerard says quickly.
“I can pay for you. You can just owe me or something,” he continues, pulling out his wallet. I quickly panic, trying to think of a reason why not to buy anything here, but Gerard has already thrown a 5 across the table to me.
“Here. Then you have enough for a salad and a coke,” he says with a smile. I can feel myself blush slightly as the embarrassment builds. I can't believe I'm being pitied by my own friends.
At least they don't know.
I grab the 5 and turn to push Mikey out of the way so that I can get away from the table quickly.
I get up to the counter and order a salad and a small coke. I hand over Gerard’s 5 dollar bill and my own 7 dollars in quarters. I take a step to the side to let other people place their order.
As I wait for my food, I look down at the table. Ray and Gerard have already gotten their sandwiches, and Mikey is leaning back with his arms crossed, obviously complaining about the service.
I smirk before I turn my head and look up at the menus above the counter. I can't believe they're charging so much for plain food. How can they honestly charge 15 dollars for a hamburger? It's a complete ripoff!

“One Caesar salad and a small coke,” a clerk yells out, and I quickly walk over to grab my food.
The salad is kinda big. I won’t have any room for dinner. Maybe I should skip dinner then. It would save me the embarrassment.

“This is so unfair! Even Frank got his food before me,” Mikey whines as he scoots over to let me sit in front of Ray, instead of Gerard. I carefully place the plastic bowl of salad and the cardboard cup of coke on the table before I sit down and eat quietly and slowly.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have ordered chicken wings, you dope,” Gerard complains.
Maybe I shouldn’t have agreed to come. Now I don’t have money enough to get on a bus back to the homeless shelter in Newark.