Toast.It was the only safe option.I uncovered a loaf of whole wheat bread with one lone slice and two end pieces.
I hadn’t realized my breakfast panic lasted a half hour.A return to Vinny’s room found him already up and taking a shower.I sure hoped he could pick his own clothes.
Vinny appeared downstairs twenty minutes later.His brown hair looked like he’d lost a fight with a leaf blower.
“Do you need help with your hair?”I asked as neutrally as I could manage.
“Doyou?”He patted down his hair and scowled at me.
“Is toast okay for breakfast?”
“I don’t like butter on it.”He slumped in a chair at the table.
“Good thing there isn’t any in the fridge.”I shoved the lone piece of bread into the toaster.“Do you need a ride to school or is there a bus or friend that takes you?”
“I need a ride.”
“Any afterschool activities today?”
“It’s Thursday.”He looked at me like I was an idiot.“No.”
“I assume same time for pickup as yesterday.Do you need me to pack a lunch, or do you buy?”
He pointed to a soft lunchbox with pictures of cartoon astronauts attached to his backpack.
I slid the toast onto the plate in front of him.
“It’s too dark.You can’t even do toast right.”He pushed away from the table to get jam out of the refrigerator.
“What time do you have to be at school?”
“Don’t you know anything?By 7:45.”
I sat across from him and waited for him to look at me.When he finally did, the expression on his face was anything but kind.His glare said every awful thing in his life, somehow, was my fault.
“I don’t know anything about your day-to-day life,” I said.
He huffed and rolled his eyes.
“I imagine there’s some sort of psycho car line etiquette I’m bound to screw up and some mom in charge of it will fuss me out.”While simultaneously warning me off Josh Hurst since the women in this town all seem to have a crush on him.“There’s officially no edible food in this house other than the lasagna dropped off yesterday,” I announced.“That”—I pointed at the lone slice he nibbled suspiciously—“is literally theonlypiece of bread that isn’t an end piece.I don’t know what I’m supposed to put in your lunch box.Do you want cold lasagna?”
“I don’t like lasagna.I’ll grab some things to take.”
I glanced around.“Why don’t you have any pets other than a beta fish on the edge of death?Dad always used to have a few strays here and there.”
“The cat died a few months ago.He was old and his kidneys gave out, or at least that’s what Dad said.We had a poodle for a while, but he got killed by a coyote or something.We used to have a goat, but he choked on a balloon last year.”
“Well, shit.That’s awful.”I leaned back in my chair.
A small smile tugged at his mouth.“Dad used to curse like that.Mom hated it.”
“I’ve got a potty mouth a mile wide.Inherited it legit from Dad.I can try to clean it up if you want, but honestly, life tosses moments that sometimes deserve a solid shit or damn.”
He studied me.“You’re not very good at this parent stuff, are you?”
“I’m not trying to be your parent, unless you do something that forces it out of me.I’m your sister.We’re blood.Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other.”
Someone knocked at the front door.
