Aces [#NANOWRIMO2017]

Seraphine Disses The Heck Out Of The Color Green

Fʀɪᴅᴀʏ, Fᴇʙʀᴜᴀʀʏ 9

———

It was Friday, and Lynne and I both knew exactly what that meant. Every Friday, Lynne and I dedicated the afternoon and evening to spending time with each other — just the two of us. Sometimes, we'd even end the day with a sleepover.

This week, Lynne had managed to convince me yet again that going shopping with her would be a good idea. How had she accomplished such an impressive feat? Let's take a look at the conversation we'd had over text that morning, shall we...

Lynne: seraaaaaa! im out of purple fabric. will you come fabric shopping with me today?

Me: again?? didnt we just buy purple fabric last week???

Lynne: yeah but i used it all up making this rlly cute scarf :( pleease, sera?

Me: i dunno...

Lynne: we can stop by the ice cream shop on our way back tho

Me: let's go right now please

I'm a girl of little needs, but one of those needs is rocky road ice cream. It's like... sweet, creamy, cold, life-giving juices.

Okay, that sounded disgusting, but you get what I'm saying, right? They do say that the way to a woman's heart is through their stomach...

"How about this one?" Lynne said.

"I dunno, it's pretty... but still kinda drab," I told her. "I like this one better."

"Oh, my gosh! Hold that thought; this one is perfect." Lynne held up a patterned green cloth to the light.

"Ew, green? Seriously, Lynne?" I said. I hated the color green. Not all greens were awful, but the snot-green shade in her hands was... less than ideal.

Lynne frowned. "Come on, Seraphine. It's making a comeback!"

"It is not making a comeback. It was never even here in the first place. In fact, that is the ugliest color I have ever laid eyes on."

Lynne gasped in mock-horror and started to stroke the horrid green thing. "It's okay, honey, she just can't appreciate your true beauty," she cooed. Putting her hands on her hips, she said to me, "You keep insulting this gorgeous fabric and you're not getting any ice cream today. That's a threat, honey."

My eyes widened. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry. It's beautiful. I have never laid eyes on anything as pretty as that cloth. Its radiance absolutely blows me away, et cetera, et cetera, please forgive me."

Lynne and I stared at each other for about half a second more before we both broke out into laughter at the same time.

Heck, I love that girl.

In the end, Lynne bought the disgusting green piece of junk. Honestly, knowing her, she'd probably manage to turn it into some incredible designer jacket or something.

After that, we almost went shoe shopping.

Almost.

I'd been trying to convince Lynne that her feet were a perfectly acceptable size and NOT abnormally large ever since the first time we took a trip to the shopping center together, but so far, she'd only had the guts to step into the shoe store by my side once. I knew that she was fine buying shoes on her own, but it made her feel incredibly self-conscious having someone else with her.

As always, as soon as we passed Soul to Sole, I stopped Lynne and launched into a speech about how every part of her was absolutely beautiful and she had no need to worry about people thinking that her feet were too large, because anyone with eyes could see that she was one of the most gorgeous girls to ever walk the earth. As always, Lynne dismissed me with a comment of "maybe some other day". And as always, I let it slide. I didn't want to pressure her into doing something that she really didn't want to do; respecting people's boundaries is important!

Still, it broke my heart knowing that Lynne still hadn't recovered from her elementary school nickname, "Bigfoot". If I ever find myself meeting whoever came up with that dumb nickname, I swear I'll beat the snot out of them, I mused.

"What are you thinking about?" Lynne asked. The two of us were walking our way downtown to buy ourselves some out-of-season ice cream.

"Huh? Nothing. Not about obliterating the jerk who made up the nickname 'Bigfoot' to a bloody pulp. Definitely not."

I'd been trying to make Lynne smile. That was something that Lynne would normally smile at; she didn't like blowing her problems out of proportion, preferring instead to laugh them off. Drama queen were definitely not words that I'd ever use to describe her.

Instead, though, her face became oddly closed off and she looked away.

"Lynne? Sorry, I shouldn't have said that, should I?"

"No, it's okay," she replied. "I'm just overreacting. You didn't know." She took a deep breath, then turned to look at me. "Sera, can I..."

She paused. "Yeah?" I encouraged her. "What's up?"

"Can I tell you something? About the Bigfoot thing. It's been weighing on me ever since, well — since exactly a week ago, actually."

The two of us reached the ice cream place. I stood beside the door, not blocking it, but not making any moves to go inside either. "Of course you can. You can tell me everything, remember?" I felt a pang of regret at the words, but brushed it aside.

Lynne leaned on the wall beside me. "You know how when Ace approached us last Friday at lunch, I got us to leave right away? Like, as soon as I saw him? And then when we were walking away, I told you to stay away from him, right?"

I pressed my lips together and nodded, not liking where this conversation was going. "Yeah."

"That wasn't just because of the rumors I'd heard about him. It was 'cause he... 'cause I think that he was the one who came up with the name — the name Bigfoot. He was the first one to call me Bigfoot to my face, at least. And after that, everyone else started imitating him and before long it was like I didn't even have a name anymore. It hurt me even more than if someone else had said it, because... because the two of us, we were..." Lynne chewed on her lower lip and stopped talking, overwhelmed. "Well, it really hurt. And I don't know if he remembers me anymore, but I'm telling you, Sera — he's bad news." She glanced up at me, then her eyes darted away just as quickly. "Sorry. Serious moment over. Let's go get our ice cream."

She swept into the store, leaving me standing outside in the sun, stunned and still absorbing the things she'd told me about Ace.

Well, I didn't see that coming, I thought to myself.

There was something about Lynne's story that was bothering me. Ace had said that his sister Hazel leaving for college was what had changed him. He seemed to believe it, too.

But based on Lynne's newest revelation, it seemed that he hadn't exactly been the nicest person alive even when he'd still had Hazel in his life. After all, Hazel had only left two years ago, but Lynne's cruel nickname had originated all the way back in grade one.

One more thing. What had she been about to tell me before she stopped herself?