A Book About Love

Chapter One: Love at First Sight

Chapter One

Love at First Sight

India

Was it love at first sight?

It had to be, they hadn't talked before.

India peeked up from the sideburns of the pages of her book and glanced in his direction.

She noticed how he smiled, recognized it, remembered it.

His face turned in her direction, she returned to the hidden hollows of a novel about Anne Frank.

Don't fall in love, because everything that falls - breaks, and you and your darling heart must stay unbroken, for me.

Her mother had been entirely against the idea of dating and of love, after going through three broken marriages and countless of aimless dates. She had decided to dedicate the rest of her life to investing into becoming a yoga teacher and a life of peace, serenity, and one free of men.

India had supported her, helping her mother organise her end of broken hearts club, and her little (not very little, for the fact that it involved 173 people in a ballroom in the town's country club) party to celebrate a new life.

India rarely ate in school, she didn't want to deal with the whole awkward situation of sitting alone and being the only one at a table (and eating greasy fries from the cafeteria). She instead filled her stomach with the fullness of books, their words engulfing her entirely, transporting her to another world. She could sit at hours on end, reading Mitch Albom from cover to back, from back to cover, or Jodi Picoult upside down. She loved to read, write, and paint.

Everything he wouldn't like, she thought, and scowled. She tried to think about what he would like, or at least make him look in her direction. I could try to dress up as a skank, she thought, before shaking her head, but I'd rather drown myself in slime before doing that. Everything she thought of, she swore she would never do, and so eventually, she retreated into her silent cove of silent watching and admiration.

How had she fallen for him? He smoked, he partied, he drank. He dated girls, in ponytails and with sickly beautiful eyes and the curviest bodies. He was always stuck with the worst grades in class, but why did he need an education? His trust fund probably could last him all the way until the day he died, and even pay for the rent on all his properties for about a hundred years after.

She always wondered what falling in love would feel like, especially when characters in books indulged in what she deemed fictional love. With all the stupid butterflies, heart pumping and quivering knees - okay, she had yet to feel the knees part of that, but the rest, she'd been through. She was wondering if she really was in love with him, or just the perfect idea of having him. And even after many weeks of asking herself, she was not able to decide which it was.

But all she knew was that she was in love - with some part of him anyway.

* * *

Finn

He didn't care about this school; he actually came here to make his father angry.

Which he was. Furious, in fact.

And Finn remembered himself smiling.

Why must you go to that school? It's for peasants! The poor! You are not to go to that school! I will not have that under my roof!

So Finn moved out, a few hours away from his father's house. His bank account was loaded and stuffed to the brim. His father would never freeze his account, for fear that the news that he could not even control his son would get out. Finn was right. He attended the school whenever he pleased, however, in the back of his mind, he always knew that he would be forced to go to Harvard for college, just like his father. He didn't know how it was going to work, he had a low 2.7 GPA and he was no where near the entry requirements of Harvard.