Dom and I met when he flew down the stairs at school and literally landed in my lap. I was sitting on the bottom step and he came flying over the railing of our double-back stairwell, "doing parkour", as he put it later. His feet landed on my legs instead of the solid stair as he'd expected and he lost his footing, managed to whack me in the eye with his fist. We both sustained some bruises, and Dom, been in our school only two weeks at that point, was forbidden from practicing the art of flinging oneself down stairs and into one's female classmates, as the principal put it. 

Dom is cute, funny, smart and all those other things girls say they want in a guy and to be sure, I wanted those things too. I found out more about him than anyone else knew. I found out about his dream to become a radio talk show host, his beliefs that technology complicated life, his love of the Beatles and his intense fascination with the middle ages.

I sigh. Again my eyes drift to the window and the empty lawn. Algebra is the last thing on my mind. Downstairs I can hear my father berating my mother again and the sounds of low music seeping from Micheal's room across the hall.

RATE THIS CHAPTER!