Cherry

Cherry
Chapter 5
(071221-071222)

Dominick d'Abreau was going to be the death of her. Autumn sighed as she tried to concentrate on the nephron, leaning to the side to read the notes on the board. She had just regained her precious momentum, finally concentrating when he moved. Dominick raised a hand to ask a question, the muscles in his back bunching as he lifted his arm. He tilted his head, his hair, freshly cut, slid out of the way to expose the olive skin of his neck.

Autumn was tempted to do two things. Either smash her head into the desk to knock some sense into herself or reach out and skim her hand along his back muscles. She felt a little like a hussy. All she did was fantasize about him, the feel of his muscles beneath her fingers the tightness of his thighs between her legs.

"Thanks miss." Dominick said cheerfully as he furiously scribbled down what their Human Biology teacher had explained. There was the audible scratch of his pen against paper as the rest of the class finished copying down the notes that the teacher's had written on the board.

"Hey Autumn, did you have a pen? Mine's out of ink." Dominick swivelled around in his seat smiling at her as her eyes snapped to his.

"Sure." She answered as she dug into her pencil case for a spare pen. She usually carried them in case she needed them. Dominick tapped his fingers against the back of his chair whistling to himself. Autumn knew enough about him to know that he did this out of habit rather than to annoy.

"Blue or black?" Autumn held up two of her spare pens and Dominick ceased his finger tapping to think.

"Black."

"Thanks." Autumn handed him the pen and Dominick swivelled back to the board. Autumn took a deep, shuddering breath as his shoulders came back into view. Autumn tried not to think about how pretty he was as she copied out the diagram of the Bowman's capsule, her pencil sliding across her paper. She tried to keep her diagrams as detailed as possible, to not only help with information but for her own strange sense of purpose.

In the Richards family, April was the athletic, popular one. She was the apple of their parents’ eye whose grades were fairly average. Autumn was the one with the stellar grades and extended vocabulary. She was also the sister with the most artistic ability. She liked art. A lot of people had difficulty with how someone as painfully logical as Autumn was able to be so visually able. And to Autumn it was simple. Art was mathematical. It was all about the proper proportions and the proper balance. It was more than pretty colours on paper or canvas. It was about the perfect mix of red and blue that made the perfect purple. Add a little white and you ended up with pretty lavender, add a little redder and a little more white and you ended up with mauve.

Art was Autumn's thing and as she looked down at the diagram in front of her she was hit with a strange revelation. The reason she liked Dominick was a mixture of art, maths and history. Autumn was both academic and artistic, so it was only logical that when it came to her choice in partner was based primarily on this mixture of logical academia and lateral art theory.

Beauty is subjective. It is biased and based on one's own interpretation. Some say that the more attractive among us fulfil a simple ratio. The theory was that the more symmetrical the face the more physically attractive they were. Dominick's facial features were fairly symmetrical. His left eye was situated slightly lower than the right and one nostril was a fraction bigger. His lips were perfectly symmetrical, the bottom lip fuller than the top.

His cheekbones were presumably identical; his left eye making his left cheek look like it was situated higher on his face. He had fairly prominent cheekbones, clearly defined by the sharp angle of his jaw. His cheeks appeared to be somewhat sunken because of this definition and it elongated his face. Autumn's hand began to fly across the page as she rewrote the teacher's notes.

She continued to analyse Dominick's physical attributes as she wrote down the notes on filtration. Apart from the slightly lowered left eye and the larger nostril the only other physical anomaly was a small scare above his left temple, partially hidden by his hairline. Autumn pitched her head forward and smacked it into the desk.

She didn't know when she had found time to study Dominick intently and she was almost ashamed of herself for analysing him in purely physical terms. Her studies hadn't started to suffer but she was scared that they would if she didn't get herself sorted out. Autumn took a deep, calming breath and pulled her head up, ignoring the headache blooming in her cranium.

"Are you okay?" Dominick was frowning at her the skin in his forehead bunching together and making his scar appear more visible.

"Yeah." She answered lowering her eyes to read over her notes. Her handwriting had become nearly unreadable halfway through her latest paragraph and she had to scribble it up and back track, trying to find where she needed to copy from on the board.

Dominick had turned back around and Autumn peered around his broad shoulders to read off of the board. She bit her lip hard as she caught up with what she had written and began to rewrite the notes she hadn't been able to read earlier, studiously ignoring the strange allure of Dominick's surprisingly pretty shoulders.

"Alright guys. Read the chapter on the kidney tonight and we'll have an impromptu Q and A tomorrow." Miss Dillon dismissed her class as the bell for the end of rang out through the school.

While those around her packed up their belongings, Autumn sat stationary, waiting for the class to empty so she could finish copying down the notes.

"Haven't finished yet Autumn?" Elizabeth Dillon approached her star student and watched her write down some notes.

"Sorry miss, I got distracted." Autumn looked up briefly to check the spelling of arteriole as she spoke to her Human Biology teacher.

"Perfectly understandable. I admire your concentration if I were you I would have been too busy drooling over Dominick to care about filtration." Elizabeth smiled cheekily as she watched Autumn blush brightly.

"It can be hard." Autumn said weakly.

"He is rather dishy isn't he? I mean I know I shouldn't because he's a student and it would be inappropriate but you can't not notice."

Autumn giggled as she copied down the final sentence of the final paragraph before packing up her things.

"Have a nice night Autumn, don't study too hard." Autumn smiled at her new favourite teacher as she left the room.

"You too miss." She called as she made her way down the empty hall. The hallways of the school usually cleared about seven minutes after the bell and Autumn had spent longer than that copying out her notes properly. With April away at a week long round robin tennis tournament, Autumn could afford to take her time getting to her locker before making her way home. Autumn made her way through the empty halls slowly, passing a few stragglers on the way.

The science block was a long stretch of winding halls, her locker located on the other side of the building. On one side of the block were the Human Biology labs, a bank of five classrooms with all the necessary equipment. Autumn's locker was located in the Chemistry area of the building, nestled between chemistry lab four and three. As Autumn passed chemistry lab four, the door was flung open and she jumped, startled.

"I have your pen."

~*~*~*~

Hello my lovelies,
How were your holidays?
No seriously, i wanna know mine were pretty shit house.
Thanks for all the support and to my lovely reviewer who i helped with writers block, YAY.
If writers block were a real tangible thing i'd beat it to death with a blunt object or stiletto.
Now I was reading over my reviews (Thanks for the chapter by chapter breakdown w-s I loved the effort), and i have one question.
Most of you think that Dominick is hot but now I just want to know.
What makes Dominick hot?
Is it because he's physically attractive?
Is it because he's so.... enigmatic?
Is it how he treats Autumn?
OR; is it because we all secretly want to be pressed against a locker or a bookshelf but a hot, smart honey?
I seriously want to know.
Enjoy your new years everyone.
Love always,
Alice.
P.s.: Does anyone actually read these messages?