• tab He smiled.
    tab For awhile, we just sat there, reliving the kiss, then Jack said:
    tab ”That was the first time I kissed,”
    tab Total shock. What do I do?
    tab A) Laugh in his face.
    tab B) Make a pathetic attemp on a joke.
    tab C) Smile and say something sappy.
    tab I crudely colored in B, but let my pencil drift a little into C.
    tab I bit my lip.
    tab ”That’s really- I mean- I’m honored,” What was I     supposed to say?
    tab Jack bit his lip too.
    tab ”I’m honored it was with you,”
    tab I got up and went over to the doorframe, and leaned on it with my knee up and head tilted towards him.
    tab ”Come on Romeo, are you going to walk me out? Or do I have to walk up those lonely stairs     all by myself?”
    tab Jacked grinned and came over to lean on the other side of the door frame.
    tab ”Well, that’s tempting,” I punched him playfully. “But what kind of gentleman would do that to Juliet?”
    tab ”Come on,” I said as I grabbed his hand and pulled him behind me climbing up the stairs. At the door, I turned around and gentley kissed him. We both smiled. We didn’t say anything until I opened the door and said:
    tab ”See you at school,”
    tab He grinned.
    tab ”At least school sounds a bit brighter.”

    tab Finish the rest, then come back to it.
    tab Ah, if only if it was that easy.
    tab     You can keep going, but you get distracted. Like, you have perfect skin, but there is this one zit- pimple- that’s is just like…
    tab Dad was always good with helping me concentrate.

    tab August 9, 2001, muggy, sunny, with giant puffy clouds in the sky. The news report said it would rain in a few hours, and dad and me were finishing painting my bike. I had bought it at a garage sell, and it was decent size, but it had pink everywhere. I spray-painted it black with silver and red streaks. We went inside because it was so hot out, the kind where it just burns your skin and you can see the heat waves. Mom was trying to get the AC running, and one thing lead to another, and a fire started. It wasn’t big. But we were freaking out and I was trying to pour water- anything that was liquid- in the flame. But it just kept growing. So we ran. Mom and me had gotten out, and we could see plumes of smoke coming out from the back of the house. Dad? Dad? Dad! I was screaming, yelling, anyway to find my dad. He did come out. But not until after the firemen came and dowsed the fire. He was so pink. Dad was burnt all over, his lips bloated, and his face scarred. He was alive, but they had to put a tube in his neck to keep him breathing, and he didn’t response to my touch.
    tab Mom unplugged him this summer.
    tab I don’t blame her. Well, I did. I kept telling her that he would wake up, that he would come to my school and laugh and cry and play with me and- it was a fantasy. I knew he wasn’t going to wake up. Not after 8 years of living with a tube in you neck and a constant beeping in your ear. No, that only happened in movies.
    tab What a load of cr**.