in the eye, and I can see she has tears in hers.
“I’m sorry you have to go through that. Kids are brats, and their parents should teach them better. I can’t control that, but I can teach you better. Don’t let the hatred of others bring you down. You’re above all those kids who are mean to you. You don’t have to fight all the time. You win by being smarter than all of them. You’re gonna be the one, out of all those little A-holes in that school, to be somebody big. They might not respect you now, but I guarantee they’re gonna respect you later. You’ll see, Dom. I just want what’s best for you, that’s all. I want you to have a better, safer life than what your father has. Do you understand?”
A better life than my father has? A better life than the nice cars, and the money, and the women, and the respect of every man in the city? How does it get better than that?
I hear her words, but it does nothing for me. It’d be impossible to convince me that my father’s life is somehow bad. He has everything. I want everything he has, and I’m so tired of trying to be the nice kid my mom wishes I was. The things that I think aren’t nice. The things I want to do to those kids who call me Ugly Dominic aren’t nice. I’m not who my mother thinks I am, but I don’t want to break her heart by telling her that I’m more like my father than she knows. So, I hear her words, but I let them go in one ear and out the other. Just like my father would do.
“Yeah, Ma. I understand.”
Dominic
Friday. Everybody loves Friday, even me, but what I’m even more excited about is that I’m about to see Alannah again. She’s really been going out of her way to talk to me all week long. I don’t know why she does it, but I like it. In fact, I think I like her, but I’m not going to say anything about it. She gets enough crap from people just for hanging out with me, so the last thing I want to do is make her feel uncomfortable by telling her how much I like her. So, when she sits down next to me during lunch—for the fourth day in a row—I just smile at her and keep eating.
Okay, she’s here. Just stay cool, Dominic, I think to myself.
“Hi, Dominic,” she says as she sits. She’s wearing a pink shirt with a picture of NSYNC on it, and I instantly have a new hatred for Justin Timberlake. Her brown hair is so pretty, and it hangs over her shoulder like it was always meant to be there. She smells good, too, like flower scented perfume made just for her.
“Hi, Alannah. What’s up?” I reply, making sure I don’t let my inner thoughts slip out.
“Not much. Nothing but wishing I would’ve packed a lunch today instead of eating this,” she says, gesturing towards her tray. “Seriously, what the crap is this?”
“I think it’s meatloaf,” I answer, smiling. “Or, wait, maybe it’s lasagna. No, it’s a cheeseburger.”
She laughs, and now I smile because she’s smiling and I like it.
“You’re funny, and I think you’re right. It’s a combination of, like, ten different things. So gross.”
“Almost as gross as the picture on your shirt.” She looks down at stupid Justin’s face and gasps.
“Leave them alone,” she jokes as she hits me in the arm. I notice we’re getting some stares from people, but I ignore them. “You wish you had curly, Ramen Noodle hair like JT.” Both of us laugh, and I do my best to think about what my mom was telling me earlier this week. I’m trying to be nice, but the girls a few tables down from us are starting to get on my nerves with their gawking.
Alannah and I finish our food and get up together. We dump our trays and ignore the whole world as we walk outside. Our hands are so close together as we walk they’re almost touching. I really have to concentrate because the closer our hands get, the faster my heart beats. I don’t think she even knows how close we are.
The two of us walk to the center of the playground to a big, dome-shaped jungle gym and climb to the top. It’s not really that high, but it feels