I DON'T OWN ZERO DAY
As Cal and I followed our parents to Applebee's, Cal and I started talking. He started talking about Tielsen High School. He clearly didn't think very much of the place.
"All of the people at that school are assholes." Cal said.
"I'm sorry." I told him. I knew what it was like to be above all the morons at your school. "It was the same at the last school I was at. The jocks and the rich kids enjoyed making everyone else's lives Hell."
"I wish I could say that things will be better here, but they won't." Cal replied.
"Do you have any friends?"
"I have a couple. There's this one girl, her name's Rachel Lurie. I've known here since kindergarten." Cal didn't say that he had a crush on Rachel, but he didn't have to. When you saw the look on his face when he talked about her, you could tell that he did care for her.
"Who's your other friend?" I asked.
"His name is Andre Kriegman. I met him in first grade." The way he talked about Andre, you would've thought that they were brothers instead of best friends. Maybe that's why Cal couldn't walk away from Zero Day. He and Andre had such a bind that neither of them could've broken it. Even if they'd wanted to. Eventually, we pulled into the Applebee's parking lot and we followed my parents and Carl's family inside. My parents and Carl's parents sat at one booth while Cal, Eric, Madelyn, and I sat at another. I had Honey BBQ boneless wings and a Diet Coke while Cal had the fiesta lime chicken and a raspberry ice tea. As we ate, I told Cal more about myself.
"I used to be a writer, but I gave up on it." I said.
"Why?" Cal asked me.
"I probably wasn't very good at it."
"How do you know? Maybe you're good and you just don't know it."
"I dunno, I was never trying to make a career out of it. It was just something that brought me solace. You know?" Cal nodded as he drank his tea.
"What's solace?" Eric asked.
"It means happy. When something brings you solace, it makes you happy." Cal explained. I smiled as I watched him interact with his siblings. He seemed like a good brother.
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