He was looking at her frank forehead as she looked down at her watch to tell him the time. Except she laughed and told him how much of an idiot she was for having it on backwards so it would read upside-down. He didn’t think she was an idiot. He didn’t tell her that because she might take his perfectly neutral opinion differently. He thought of what to say to her, but he could not find the words because there weren’t any inside his head except her name. Lorraine. It was a rare name to have, he thought. Antiquated, almost. Her name reminded him of a rainy day that would be adequately gloomy for him to think of her, a day in which rain would fall on your window with that persistence and rhythm. Her forehead was frank. He watched her try to read her watch upside-down, turning her wrist the other way. Now she looked like an idiot, he thought. He wondered if he should laugh. He wondered if she would take his casual laughter differently. But what did it matter. He liked her enough to stare at her forehead. (She was staring at his hands as she feigned to read her watch. His hands were quite fine for a guy who rarely held a pencil. They reminded her of her father’s hands. She always thought her father’s hands were ugly. They were not the hands of a pianist. But she loved his scars. The old, discolored scar on his right wrist that she called a tattoo, the many charred marks on his fingertips that turned so many pages--the streaks and blemishes that stained his ugly hands were all beautiful to her. She loved most the scar that ran the length of his left fourth finger. The tendons are not right, he had told her. She remembered that it didn’t stretch completely so it hurt him to play. She remembered that it also held his wedding ring. The scars were gone now because her father was dead. Perhaps that was why she took things differently. Yes, his hands are quite fine, she thought. She missed her father.) He boldly took a chance and laughed. She looked at him. Why did he just laugh, they both thought. I’m an idiot. But what did it matter. She looked at him. 

     (It was eight eleven.)

Written for the Teen Woolf project for AP English Literature. My second A+.