Who: Lux and Gio Serafini What: Sibling reunion, times two. Where: A McDonalds in Cranston, RI When: Wednesday, January 4; noon
It was always kind of weird, seeing his sister now. Once, it was all that Gio wanted in the world, being with his sister again, but that had been a long time ago. He'd been a kid then. He wasn't a kid now, no matter what the state said about it. They didn't even know that he barely ever spent time at his grandpa's house. His grandpa barely even noticed that Gio didn't spend time at his house. Minnie noticed when he was there in the Underworld, sometimes, he guessed, but she wasn't his mom. She just let him bum around in her kingdom and she'd gotten a microwave when he asked for one. And then that weird cookbook. He'd shoved it into his bag and hadn't bothered looking at it again. Why did he need a cookbook? Pizza rolls were real food, no matter what anybody else said about it. Especially Minnie. She probably hadn't ever eaten pizza rolls. She couldn't judge them.
He didn't want to meet Lux there, either. At his grandpa's house, not the Underworld. He really didn't want Lux to be in the Underworld, even if they didn't talk as much anymore as they used to, and there was a lot of stuff about him that she didn't know. There was probably stuff about her that he didn't know, too. There wouldn't have been, when they were kids. Before they'd split them up, and Gio had lost the only person that he'd had left that really felt like family. It didn't matter, now. They probably wouldn't have stayed close, anyway. She'd still have left and gone off to college and stuff, even if they'd stayed together, and then they wouldn't have been friends anymore, like they had been when they were little. Besides, if she'd been around more, Gio wouldn't have been able to hide being a reincarnate from her. She'd have noticed him being gone all the time.
Maybe he wouldn't have wanted to be gone all the time, if Lux was there. How was he supposed to know? She hadn't been. They'd taken her away from him.
McDonald's was a stupid place to meet up. It wasn't like Gio even ate there much. That was Nico's thing, not his, and he was too old to order a Happy Meal now, anyway. They'd only ever really been worth it for the toys. They had the ones from that stupid Sing movie now, anyway. He wouldn't have wanted those even if he could have gotten a Happy Meal.
He'd just been trying to think of a place for them to meet that was away from his grandpa's house, and McDonald's? That was the first place that had jumped into his head. That was probably Nico's fault.
His backpack was down by his feet, and he was huddled in one of the booths, looking toward the door every time that it opened. All he had was a drink, so far, and the employees had been giving him shitty looks every since he'd sat down. What? It wasn't like they were going to get a tip anyway, it was a fast food restaurant. Besides, Gio couldn't afford to give people tips. He could barely afford to buy one dollar drinks.
The worst part about seeing Lux was trying to put on the face that would convince her that everything was okay. Not because he didn't want to do it, and make her think that he was fine. It was just... hard to remember what fine was supposed to look like, and feel like, on his face. It felt weird, the smiles that he was practicing. It probably looked weird, too. The people in the next booth were giving him shitty looks, too. That could have just been because he was a teenage boy in an oversized black hoodie and black jeans, hunched over the table while their little kids were running around playing. They probably thought he kicked puppies for fun, or something.
It didn't matter. It didn't matter what they thought of him. It didn't even really matter what Lux thought of him. He was fine. He didn't need any of them to like him. He just needed Lux to think that he was okay.