Remembering to Forget

1

"Come here! Loser!" The other boy's cries echo through the woods, but Dominic has been through this whole thing enough times to get good at it. Good at running away, that is.

"I'm gonna end you!"

Dominic winces. This is hardly the first time that someone from school has gone after him like this, but his predator seemed especially angry at him this time around, for... existing? To be honest, Dominic had no idea what made him such a popular target.

Crack.

As he jumps on a tree branch, it breaks in the middle, and he stumbles into the ground. The boy chasing him doesn't expect Dominic to fall there, and accidentally trips over him, rolling several times past Dominic on the leafy hill they were sprinting down. Dominic turns and runs back up the hill; he's got a good set of lungs, and his adrenaline is more than enough to see him escape the older boy with the head start he's been given.

He takes one glance, and smiles. Noah has given up on pursuing him, evidently tired by the running. And once again, Dominic has escaped.

*     *     *     *

That sort of thing is what he knows a lot of kids his age have to deal with. As soon as boys turn fifteen or sixteen, they just sometimes become sociopaths. Dominic is glad he isn't one of those. Or... maybe he still would be. He hadn't quite escaped that age bracket yet. He just hoped, for Missy's sake, that he didn't turn into one of those.

"Did you have a good day?" she asks, smiling brightly at him.

"Yeah, it was sweet," he lies. "You?"

"It was pretty good." She cocks her head in thought, evidently attempting to come up with something to tell her brother about her day. "Oh! Jemma and Emily had a huge fight."

"Any blood?"

"Of course not!" She looks shocked he'd even considered the thought. He snickers. "It was just a verbal thing. They're okay now anyway, I don't think they even remember what it was about. I don't know what happened, I wasn't near them when they fought. I spent lunchtime hanging out with Tamara instead, and she asked..."

Missy trails off and takes another bite of her dinner. Dominic looks up. "What did she ask?"

"She... she wanted to come over to our house."

Oh.

"It's okay though!" Missy says quickly. "I don't really like her that much anyway, and she doesn't need to know about—"

"Why don't you just go over to her house instead?" Dominic asks.

"Well, I don't know. I didn't know whether you'd be okay with it. And she hasn't asked me to come over to her place, so it's not like it matters at the moment."

Dominic glances at her momentarily, before returning to his last sausage. Why wouldn't I be okay with it? It's not like I could really say no.

"It's just... you don't go over to anyone's houses after school or anything, so I wasn't sure..."

"Missy, the reason I don't go over to anyone's house is because I've got so much other shit to do. This is the first time in like six days I've been able to eat dinner with you, since I've been working."

"And I told you, this would be so much easier if you just let me get a job as well!" Missy huffs.

Dominic winces. A rant was coming. He always hated when she got like this; she had a much fierier temper than him, and while his demeanour helped him stay out of trouble, it wasn't particularly useful when someone like Missy got up close and personal. And loud. "Look, I just think—"