Myrtles and Marigolds | Lander One-Shots

🧶 Woven Feelings 🧶

Genre: Fluff?

~

A fourteen-year-old boy sat at his kitchen table, holding a cotton merlot-colored scarf in his hands. Feeling worry, he found himself scrunching up the soft fabric so hard he could feel his fingernails dig into his skin through it.

His best-friend -- and conveniently also crush -- had just gifted him that scarf today. After school, they decided to hang out at some of the outdoor tables their school had, and right there, he gave him the piece of clothing. And he did it for no particular reason. It wasn't his birthday or anything. He just decided to get him that scarf for the sake of it. Just for him...

He was trying to convince himself that the feelings he had weren't that big of a deal. It was just some silly crush. But as time went on, he could only find that crush continuing to sit with him, growing deeper and deeper. And as his feelings spiraled, he went down with them, finding it harder and harder to deny reality.

"Luke!" a loud maternal voice called out, accompanied by the sound of a front door swinging open, "I'm home!"

"Oh, uh, hi, mom!" Luke stammered, "I'm in the kitchen!"

Luke's mom then strode into the kitchen, tiredly collapsing her purse onto the same table that Luke sat behind.

"Did you get your homework done?"

"I actually didn't have any today," Luke informed, feeling slight relief at the subject.

"Well if you didn't have any homework, I'd like it if you'd study math for a bit," the auburn-haired woman began to ramble, "I checked your grades recently, and you're falling behind in that class."

"Oh, okay," Luke quickly agreed, feeling slight guilt. In general he tended to be a pretty decent student. He wouldn't greatly accelerate, but wouldn't fail anything, and hardly ever turned in assignments late. But math had always been a bit of a hard subject for him.

Feeling emotional, Luke held up the scarf his violet-haired crush gave him, hugging it against his chest.

Just as Luke's mom was removing her coat, hanging it against the rack they had, she turned to look towards her son, a concerned expression crossing her face. "Luke, are you alright?" she asked, noticing the boy's sad energy.

"I'm fine," Luke mumbled, preferring to just say those two words than explain the complexity of emotions he was feeling right now. But then a question couldn't help but enter his mind, and without thought, the words slipped from his mouth, "How did you know when you were in love with dad?"

"Oh," Luke's mom quietly uttered, surprised by the question, "I don't know. It's not like there was some big magical sign or anything. I mean... I guess the simplest way to put it would just be that I would ask myself, 'Do you love him?' and just immediately, in my heart, I knew the answer was yes."

Absorbing the information, Luke let out a sigh, "Okay."

At first looking down to search through something in her purse, Luke's mom looked back to her son, and with a sly smile, asked, "Wait a minute. Why are you asking me about love?"

Feeling his face blush, Luke awkwardly averted his gaze and mumbled, "It's nothing."

Pulling out a chair opposing the yellow-eyed boy, Luke's mom sat down, knowing there was more to the situation, "Come on, Luke. You don't have to shut me out. You've never expressed any kind of romantic interest before; I'd like to here."

Luke stared down at the kitchen table, the scarf now being held loosely in hand. His mind raced as he tried to think of what to say, until energy pent up to the point where he just blurted, "I think I'm in love."

Luke's mom's face first gaped, before pulling her hand to her mouth, quietly clearing her throat, and continuing, "Luke, that's sweet, but I don't want you to get ahead of yourself. You're just fourteen. You're probably not in love. I'm sure it's just a crush, whatever this is."

Luke's hands tightly curled up as he knew otherwise, "I did what you said. I asked myself if I was in love, and I just knew the answer. I know I am."

The auburn-haired woman's face held an expression that clearly indicated that she still didn't believe her son, but she also that she wasn't going to fight him on it, so she instead just trilled, "Okay..." then after, her face resuming the same sly expression, "So, who's the lucky girl?"

Luke could feel his face grimace. He definitely didn't want to have that discussion right now. So instead he just awkwardly set aside, "It's nobody."

Luke's mom sighed as she stood up from her seat, "Well, I guess I can't expect to get everything out of you, can I?"

Luke just held an awkward crooked grin, not having any words to reply with.

"I'm going to head upstairs for a while. When I come back down I'll get a start on dinner, okay?"

"Okay, mom," Luke acknowledged, his mom then walking off. With his mom away, Luke was left residing with guilt in his chest. Guilt he got from lying to his mom about who he liked. It was possibly one of the biggest lies he ever told.

Because Zander Wickham certainly wasn't "nobody."

~

WELL THIS BOOK HAS BEEN DEAD FOR THE PAST TWO MONTHS.

Okay- yeah, it's been a while, but I'm to start uploading a least a tad more consistently here.  I've been just focusing on stories more as a whole and have been forgetting to write one-shots, but I should really get back in the habit of it since they don't take quite as long as story chapters, and are nice little refreshing break if I have been working on a story for a while.

I actually have another Lander one-shot in the works right now, so hopefully I'll get that finished and uploaded sometime soon ^^

Well, yeah, anyway- I hope you enjoyed this one-shot, and I'll try to not wait two months for the next upload :)