I groaned when my stomach decided to growl when the class was silent. There were a few laughes and I groaned again

'Unfunny' I grumbled but laughed as well

The teacher, Mr. Murray, laughed a bit. 'Don't worry, class is over in just..' he looked down at his watch 'in three more minutes'

'I'm not hungry' I laughed again. 'Why does everyone assumes that, when someone's stomach is growling, means that that someone's hungry?'

'Maybe you're not hungry but your stomach is' he tried to reason and I laughed, looking down at my stomach

'Shush for now Ms. Belly' I tapped my stomach, making some of my classmates laugh

'I never see you eat though' someone said out of the blue, making me freeze for a second before answering simply

'Well, I don't feel comfortable eating next to people so, I eat home before coming to school.' A lie. A total lie. A very blunt lie. They seemed to buy it though and I breathed in relief

'Actually, my cousin is shy eating around other people out of our family' someone said and I nodded

The rest of the day went fine. Barely. Actually no, it wasn't fine. Not at all. My stomach kept twisting. I was hungry. Too hungry actually that I was almost starving

Reaching home I immediately went to my room cause I knew I won't be able to resist looking through the cabinets for something to eat. I couldn't. If dad will see something missing, or some wrappers in the trash, I'll probably get a good beating. But as time passed, I started to think that I don't care getting beaten if that means I'll at least get to eat

Eventually I decided against it, tomorrow I need to go to school and I don't want to walk around limping, with a fake smile and pretend everything is fine when inside I'm suffering

After tomorrow, on friday, would be a good day to eat cause that would be the weekend. Meaning no school. Meaning I won't get out of the house

My dad never really starved me like that, he does give me food, not much but just enough. The last few days made me wonder why I didn't get food at all

I stayed in my room till late afternoon. When I heard dad's car there was a sparkle of hope inside of me. I heard the door open then close. I even heard a few bags, meaning he went to buy groceries

Now I understood why I didn't get food those last two days. I mean, he eats in work, so he probably forgot about me. Okay... that didn't make me feel much better. Forgot about me

I knew that after his work he's probably tired, but I was too hungry to care right now. Maybe now that he's already down, in the kitchen probably, he wouldn't care giving me some food

When I finally descended down the stairs though, he was on the couch, one beer bottle was already discarded on the floor. The second one was in one of his hands while he flipped through channles with his other