"I Promise I'll Pay You The Rest Next Time"

Lu got up after a while. At that moment Zoey quickly walked to the cash register. She felt even worse because she thought he noticed her staring and might have thought she was kicking him out. When Lu got to the register she said, Lu right? He nodded as a confirmation so she started looking for his receipt. She found the receipt and said with a smile "that will be seven dollars and ninety-four cents." While she said that Lu reached into his pocket and took out all the money he had in his pocket. It was all crumbled and had some change in there.

As he was handing it over he looked down apologized and said this is all I have I promise I'll pay you the rest next time. He looked so ashamed, he couldn't even look at her in the eyes it was as if he was waiting for her to scream at him, make him clean, or even worse call the cops. When Lu reached out his hand to give her all his money she saw his sleeves lift up which showed many bruises he was trying to hide. She was anguished. She saw that Lu only had five dollars and fifty-six cents. She can no longer stand to look at him, it was really breaking her heart to the point of crying her eyes out at the spot not caring who was looking or there. It made her realize he must have it tougher than she thought.

As Lu was waiting for her to scream at him, Zoey curled up his hand with hers to hold his money and in a quiet quivering voice said, "you can keep the money to buy something else, you can come and eat here anytime and we won't charge you." She was really sad and felt really bad but she didn't want to get involved so she thought it was the best and only way she can help. He looked at her as if he felt really bad and wouldn't accept. It's okay I'm in charge of this restaurant my name is Zoey and ill let my employees know as well so please accept my gift. After that Lu accepted, thanked her, and left.

{Back to the previous} Hayden handed half of his lunch to Lu.Hayden was ready for Lu to reject his offer and keep insisting but was surprised when Lu looked at him, grabbed it, and said thank you. He was happy but also a little worried. It made him happy that Lu accepted It and it made sense since he heard Lu's stomach quietly growl. The growl of his stomach was too low that it made Hayden think it was his imagination but since he accepted the food he realized it really was him. If he was really hungry why didn't he bring food? Were one of my guesses correct earlier?

Hayden still felt uneasy. Why does something not feel right? There has to be more to this somethings not right. He stopped thinking when he looked at Lu. Even though Lu's expression didn't seem to change Hayden was happy and worried less. Lu was really hungry at the time because he had run out of the money he had been saving, he didn't have much since his mom stole most of it. He wouldn't have had any left if she had found the other hiding spot. He had been going to the ramen restaurant to eat and saving the money he had left to at least eat breakfast at school but that money was already spent and Jason still hasn't come back. To make things worse he won't be back till four more days.

Lu practically starved himself for a day since he could only afford an apple to eat this morning and the last time he went to the ramen restaurant was last week. He hasn't gone to eat at the restaurant since last week because he doesn't want Zoey to think he was taking advantage of her kindness or her restaurant. Even though Lu was starving he still felt bad for accepting half of Hayden's food, but he also felt very lucky that he offered some to him.