College Creative Writing Collection

Centennial Park

This was written for a short story assignment in my Intro to Creative Writing class.

It was a warm July day, and the sun was high in the sky reflecting on the water down below. The centerpiece of the park was the large lake, filled with all kinds of wildlife. A dragonfly zips above the water, catching the girl's attention.

She's a pretty girl. Long blonde hair, wide brown eyes. She is sitting on a bench facing the lake, book open on her lap. Her eyes follow the dragonfly until it's out of sight. She sighs, adjusting her position on the bench before picking up her book and beginning to read again.

She only reads about love. What's a book if it doesn't include a love story? She reads about every kind of love imaginable. Unrequited love, where someone loves another, but they never love them back. Enemies to lovers, where they start their relationship bickering and fighting but end up falling deeply in love. Love triangle, where there are two people in love with the same person and they reciprocate the love for both, but ultimately must decide on who they love more. Friends to lovers, where they always say "oh, they're just a friend", until they realize that their relationship is more than that. Forbidden love, where they both love each other but cannot truly be together because of some circumstance, most usually a social class or familial problem. Fake relationship to a real relationship, where there's some sort of pact where they must pretend to be in a relationship and inevitably fall in love. Second chance love, where high school sweethearts break up and come back together some years later and fall right back in love. Forced proximity love, where two people fall in love after being pushed into an unfortunate circumstance, like getting stuck in an elevator together or end up carpooling together.

However, her favorite type of love is soulmates. Two people who are fated and destined to be together. Everyone has a soulmate. Some stories have dystopian worlds where soulmates find each other through a mark, a symbol, a timer, and a plethora of other ways. She dreams of finding her soulmate, her perfect half, the one person who will love her for the rest of her life. She often wonders if she has a soulmate. What they're like, when she's going to meet them, how they love.

When. It's the when that gets her. She's not saying that she's impatient but... she's a little impatient. Luckily, the stacks of romance books that she owns are able to hold her over. She glances at the book currently in her hands, realizing she was drifting. Turning her attention back to the book, she gets lost in the superficial world.

She adjusts her position again, now letting her back rest against the arm of the bench and extending her legs until it hits the divider in the bench. She sighs, listening to the birds chirp above. The large willow tree moves in the wind, the branches rustling.

Across the lake, ducks swim in the water, occasionally coming out and walking around. A man sits on a bench, just watching and observing the ducks. Every so often, he reaches into his bag and throws a handful of breadcrumbs at the ducks that come out of the water. He looks across the water to a girl sitting on a bench, reading. She's always there. Every day, at 4:45, she comes to Centennial Park, sits on the same bench, and reads. Just like clockwork.

He's a clockwork too. Every day, at 4:30, he comes to Centennial Park, sits on the same bench, across the lake from her, and watches her. Admires her from afar. And feeds the ducks. He's enchanted by her. Every day he comes, says "today's the day I ask her out," and every day he fails. He's never able to work up the courage.

However, seeing her at the lake is not the only time he's seen her. Life is funny like that sometimes. There are three instances where he's bumped into her outside of the park. Three times that he continuously goes back to recount.

The first time, coincidentally, happened the day after he first saw her reading at the lake. There was still a bit of chill in the air since it was late March. The warmth wouldn't truly come until the end of April. They were both in a bookstore a few blocks from the park. She was looking for a new romance book. He's noticed since then that she reads anywhere between one and three in a week. He was there because the bookstore just so happens to be his place of employment.