Aces [#NANOWRIMO2017]

Ace Sweeps The Girl Off Her Feet -- Literally

Sᴀᴛᴜʀᴅᴀʏ, Fᴇʙʀᴜᴀʀʏ 3

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Strike three, I thought grimly, watching Seraphine stalk off. How on earth would I get her to fall for me now? Between coming on too strong at lunch, being desperate during class, and now being a literal stalker, I'd totally ruined my chances of making a good first impression, or even an okay one.

The truth was, the only place I'd actually followed her was to the theatre. I'd noticed her at the cafe, of course, but the fact that I'd been at the cafe in the first place was a total coincidence. As soon as I'd seen her, though, I'd realized that now would be a great opportunity to find out more about her. I'd been planning on watching The Crucible so that I could casually bring it up on Monday; it would be a great way to spark a conversation and make her think that I was interested in the same things she was in, which I knew from experience was a fail-proof way of establishing that connection that I'd be needing in order to charm Seraphine.
But I'd been a total idiot; I had just hung out in front of the doors waiting for the show to start. I knew that Seraphine had seen me at the cafe -- of course she'd think I was following her if I turned up at the theatre moments after she did!

There was one thing that Seraphine had said which was puzzling me, though. She'd mentioned "this morning at the park". Yes, I'd gone to the park that morning, but I hadn't seen her there.

Not that she'd ever believe me if I told her that.

Okay, so Plan D was a failure, I reflected, flopping down into the beanbag chair under my bedroom window. Now, what's Plan E? And it better be good this time, Ace. You've only got 21 letters of the alphabet left after this.

I grabbed a shred of rumpled scrap paper and a pencil from the messy pile of junk on my desk, took a deep breath, and waited for the ideas to come rolling in. Surprise, surprise -- they didn't. I couldn't think of a single way to undo all the stupid things I'd done.

By this time, evening had already fallen on my home in Byworth Creek. It was getting late, and I eventually came to terms with the fact that I wasn't going to figure anything out that night. So I decided that tomorrow, I'd return to the place where I always found myself coming back to when I didn't know where else to turn... the forest in Windy Point Park.

Sunlight shone through the canopy of leaves overhead, dappling the familiar trail with patches of green. It had been an unseasonably warm day for early February, but I wasn't complaining; I definitely preferred warm days to cold ones. As I made my way down the dirt path, closing my eyes, breathing in the crisp air of the forest, I could feel my mind come alive. Every neuron in my brain was buzzing. In just a couple of minutes, I came up with dozens of plans.

In retrospect, each and every single one of those plans were really, really dumb and would probably never have worked. But that didn't matter. I never ended up using any of them.

Because while my eyes were closed and my mind had wandered, while I made my way around the bend in the footpath, I promptly collided with someone who clearly hadn't seen me coming. If they had seen me coming, I feel sure that they would have turned right around and went the other way. But they hadn't seen me coming, and that's what really mattered in the end.

My eyes jolted open as I fell, and I found myself face-to-face with a certain Miss Seraphine Walker for a split second -- right before my back hit the ground and Seraphine landed directly on top of my body.

Spicy.

"Well, hello there."

"Sorry! Sorry," she apologized, scrambling off of me. She went to brush herself off -- and stopped abruptly. I could see the fury in her eyes as she turned towards me. Uh-oh, here it comes.