Revamped!

[This chapter is short but I feel like I owe you a second update since I didn't update a while back and this arc is almost done.]

The Scarlet Letter: Part Eight

Right after school, Kai, Cress, and Thorne went to a pizza parlour. The three of them were hungry with no plans and while debating what to eat, they said pizza together and now, they're here. If anything, they might even tackle some homework together.

Kai and Thorne sit in a booth as Cress orders. They let her pick the toppings since she was a bit of a picky eater and they were so hungry that they would eat anything (even the table if Cress didn't hurry). After a bit, Cress comes back with two boxes of pizza that shockingly didn't topple in her tiny arms.

"You're very light," Thorne tells her as she puts the pizzas on the table and takes her seat next to him in the booth. "Do you have a calcium deficiency?"

"My calcium is fine," Cress responds.

"Your muscle tone is poor as well."

Cress gives him a dirty look and he nudges her playfully. She breaks into a grin as she crosses her legs in the booth.

"Pizza has cheese which has calcium in it," Kai says.

Thorne points at him, nodding. "Look at us being healthy!"

Healthy meaning having two pizzas in front of them. Were they going to be able to finish all that pizza? Possibly. Well, mostly the boys would since Cress was tiny and didn't eat a lot generally. Still, she liked to eat when she was hungry. People who love to eat are the best kind of people.

Cress takes a sniff of her warm sleeves. "I smell like pizza now."

Thorne takes her arm and inhales a whiff of it. "Not complaining at all."

"What kind of pizza is it?" Kai asks, opening one box and being greeted by steam.

"That one is half deluxe, half veggies," Cress says. She opens the other box. "The other is half pepperoni and olives, half pineapple."

Cress looks at Thorne and Kai for a reaction since she tried her absolute best to cater to their tastes and she believes that she did a good job at doing so, but their faces are stunned. Forget about them being hungry enough to eat anything, there was one topping they didn't want to go near.

"I'm sorry, pineapple?" Kai questions although he heard her well.

"Yeah," Cress replies casually.

"It's like you brought the sun with the pizzas, but now it's setting real hard with the pineapple."

"I like pineapple."

Cress politely tears a piece and takes a bite in it. Kai and Thorne just stare at her as if every new bite she took and stayed alive after was a miracle. Even as her boyfriend, Thorne finds her liking to pineapple one flaw about Cress.

"It's good," Cress tells them.

"Doubt it," Thorne states.

"When in doubt, ask yourself what Cinder would do." Cress puts down the slice she was working on. She grabs a napkin and dabs at the corners of her mouth. "Cinder likes pineapple on pizza."

As if the boys didn't already find Cinder weird … and Kai's dating her. Again, the oddity. Maybe pineapple was a Lunar thing, a delectable Lunar delicacy. It could be Luna's national food for all they know. If Wolf and Winter like pineapple on pizza, then it's definitely a Lunar thing.

Their thoughts of the correlation between Lunars and the love of pineapple on pizza is distracted when they notice that the television in the corner is blasting the news, specifically about the municipal elections that were coming up ever since Mayor Rikan passed.

Kai looks away and slumps in his seat. Anything about his dad still saddens him. Cress takes Kai's hand and squeezes it as tight as her apparent poor muscle tone could, as Thorne signals the waiter behind the desk to lower the volume of the television or turn it off. Then, Thorne looks over at Kai.

"You should run," Thorne says. His tone could either be serious or joking, nobody could tell. Even Thorne doesn't know.

"I'm fit enough," Kai replies with a small smile. He knows what Thorne meant.

"You are," Cress agrees, "despite looking sort of lanky."

"I'm as strong as a wire."

"You have my vote for mayor," Thorne tells him. "Even if you don't run, I'll write you in. Your first task should be to get rid of pineapple on pizza."

"Done!" Kai exclaims.

"No!" Cress objects. "You won't have my vote!"

"Please. I could still win."

"Given that you think all Lunars like pineapple on pizza, have you ever thought about how much of Commonwealth's population is Lunar immigrants."

Kai and Thorne didn't think that through. When Luna was going through a mass emigration during President Blackburn's rule, a lot of Lunars came to The Earthen Union. Lots of families came to Commonwealth because of Lunar Academy readily accepting their kids.

-o-

Scarlet and Grandmère stand together in the kitchen, making soup for dinner. Scarlet was in charge of chopping all the vegetables and her Grandmère was handling the boiling pot of broth. Despite them needing to talk about the letter and her father with his arrest, they needed to make food.

"He got arrested, Scarlet," Grandmère says. "C'est vraiment sérieux."

"And what am I supposed to do?" Scarlet asks rhetorically. "Perform an elaborate prison breakout mission for him? I have school although prison breaks are better than homework."

Grandmère huffs as she rolls her eyes. "Write him back."

Scarlet gives out a short obnoxious laugh. "Stars, no. I'd rather do the prison breakout mission."

"You're his daughter."

"I don't care."

"S'il vous plaît."

"All he wants is my sympathy and pity." She pushes the chopped carrots to the side with the knife before starting to chop a new one. "He's trying to play the father role and dig into my emotions just to get some bail money. The more you convince me to play along, the more I might just cave in and do it."

"You're overthinking this. Did you even read his letter? He didn't say spades about bail money and besides, you would be the last person he'd get money from. You're his daughter. All your words are in your head."

"It's not in my head, it's between the lines or in his case, between prison bars. Why would he contact me after all this time? He may be bored out of his mind in prison but he has better things to do than write to me."

Grandmère slams the counter and Scarlet jumps back. Since that scared her and she was holding a knife when it occurred, she accidentally nicked the tip of her pinky. Scarlet curses to herself as she grabs a fresh towel to cover her slightly bleeding wound before trashing the carrots that may now be contaminated.

"That man isn't just some stranger, Scarlet," Grandmère says, calming down a little. "Il est mon fils. I carried that boy, birthed him, and he created you. You have no right to judge him, especially since he wrote to you and not me."

Scarlet is speechless. Grandmère looks at her as Scarlet plays with the towel wrapped around her pinky. Scarlet didn't even think about the fact that her father wrote to her and not his mother.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est ?" Grandmère asks.

"You always tell the truth," Scarlet replies. "That's a part of the problem."

"Comment?"

"Because I don't always want it."

Grandmère sighs before turning back to the stove. "Look, Scarlet, this may be bad or perfect timing but I'm going out of town in two days so that'll give you some time to think about this. You'll be alone, without my opinions on what you should do with your father's imprisonment and whatever his letter may mean. Ask your friends if you want."

Scarlet nods as she excuses herself to get a bandaid for her pinky. A part of her believes that her friends will say to write to him because she still has a father unlike the majority of them, which is why she doesn't want to tell them at all. She told them enough and didn't want to feel like a total burden.

She can't move on but move forward. And since she can't run away from her problem, she might as well run over it repeatedly until it's deep underground like a coffin.

[PINEAPPLE BELONGS ON PIZZA COME FIGHT ME!] [2020: Based on some reviews I've gotten, I have a team of pro-pineapple.]