Chapter Two

Part 3

On Sunday morning it took a lot of effort for me to pull myself out of bed, but I couldn’t spend the entire day ruminating about Marcy and her wanton ways. I had a history paper due that week, and I had been remiss lately, procrastinating on the research. So instead of staying under the covers, I showered and dressed and headed for the Hillside Public Library. Normally I would have just hit the Internet, but Mr. Weeks, my history teacher, was an old-school guy with antiquated ideas. He wanted us to glean all our facts from actual books and swore he would be able to tell the difference in our work. I wasn’t sure if I believed this, but I wasn’t about to put it to the test. My grades were too important.

It was tedious work, paging through the indexes of all those heavy history tomes, but the library’s pacific atmosphere had a calming effect on me. I sat back in one of the cushioned chairs near the window and perused a book on World War I. Around me people whispered, and pages turned, and suddenly I realized my negative feelings were starting to wane. Yesterday had been awful, obviously, but here I was, doing my homework, having another day. The world had not come to a catastrophic end.

I found the section I was looking for, on Germany’s role in the war, and took out my notebook. As I was scratching various notes and ideas out on the page, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I looked up just as someone outside the window went careening by on a skateboard, jumped the parking lot’s curb, and landed on the asphalt of the adjacent playground.

It was Winter Dumas. And she was amazingly facile at boarding. She popped up on the small ramp at the far end of the playground and executed a couple of adroit turns, grabbing her board and hamming it up. Watching her playing out there in the sun, I was transfixed. Clearly she was having a great time. She even laughed out loud as she spun around and around in the center of the asphalt. Then she raced to the end of the park on her board and took off at a fast clip. I realized the extreme maneuver she was about to attempt and my heart stopped. What was she thinking? She was going to crack open her skull!

Winter did an ollie and her board caught air. I held my breath. This was going to be a debacle. Her trucks hit the old balance beam, and she slid down the length of it, keeping perfect balance and landing gracefully at the far end. Then she took off to do it all over again.

My heart pounded insanely in my chest. This girl was good. And daring. And impetuous. And man, was it sexy.

Winter made another run and another perfect trick. Intrigued, I marked my place in my book and walked outside to the park. I had no idea what to say to her, so I just hovered near the open gate. She saw me and threw a winsome smile over her shoulder.

“Hey there, football star,” she said, sliding over on her board.

“You know who I am?” I asked.

“Everyone knows who you are,” she said. “Besides, you used to hang out at my house with my brother. Don’t act like you don’t remember. You were always finishing off our Cheetos. I hated that.”

I laughed.

“So, what’s up?” she asked.

“Not much. Nice skills,” I said, pushing my hands into my pockets. Her short hair was pulled back in two tiny ponytails, accentuating her rosy skin and bright green eyes. Bright green eyes that glinted mischievously.

“I know,” she said with a shrug. “Hey, what’re you doing here? Shouldn’t you still be off riding on your team’s shoulders in victory?” She skated away a bit and worked some turns in the center of the playground.

I smirked. “I guess you think football and school spirit are vapid, huh?” I asked.

She shot me a look, like “duh.”

“Then what were you doing at the game yesterday?” I shot back, calling her out on her hypocrisy.

“Mocking the cheerleaders,” she said matter-of-factly, still spinning.

A shadow must have crossed my face as I thought of Marcy, because she stopped and put her hand over her mouth jokingly. “Oops. Forgot you’re dating one of them.”

“Not anymore,” I said automatically.

Winter smiled slowly. She skated back over to me and grabbed my arm as she jumped off her board. It skittered past us and into the fence. She rolled her big eyes up at me and smiled.

“You know, football star, if you want to ask me out, you should just ask,” she said. This girl was not big on pretense.

My heart skipped a beat. I hadn’t actually realized until that moment, with her looking at me in that teasing way, that I really did want to ask her out. It was uncanny. She could read my mind before I could. At first I wasn’t sure whether it would be expedient, my being on the rebound and all. But why not? Marcy had already moved on. And besides, Winter was pretty, and funny, and athletic. Plus she was the exact opposite of Marcy, and at the moment, I had a predilection for girls who were nothing like my ex.

“All right. What are you doing Friday night?” I said.

“I got a hot date,” Winter said, pushing herself up on her tiptoes and grinning. Her breath smelled like grape bubble gum. “With you.”