Aces [#NANOWRIMO2017]

Seraphine Breaks The Fourth Wall

Tʜᴜʀsᴅᴀʏ, Fᴇʙʀᴜᴀʀʏ 22

———

When I noticed that Ace had returned to school, it took every ounce of self-control that I had not to immediately break off the conversation I was having with Lynne by my locker. It was unimaginably hard not to go sprinting to him, and it was even harder not to stare. But if I stared, or acted too excited about Ace's return, or even acknowledged it at all, Lynne would get suspicious. And I couldn't afford for Lynne to find out that I was hanging out with Ace.

She's going to find out sooner or later anyways, chided a little voice in the back of my head.

I ignored it.

But despite my best efforts, my eyes kept drifting over to where Ace was standing. He looked tired. Miserable. Completely drained.

No, I'm just imagining it, I told myself. Ace is probably just fine. I'm overreacting because he's been away from school for so long.

Every time I looked at him, though, I found that he was looking directly at me. I told myself that if I could just hold out for two more minutes, just two more, then the warning bell would ring and Lynne and I would go our separate ways (we only had Math with each other, and that was always at the end of the day) and I could sneak a quick chat with Ace just before I headed to class. I had a million questions to ask him, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to find the answers to all of them in the sixty seconds I had to talk to him and get to class. Instead, I'd ask him to meet me after school.

Until then, I could stick it out for a bit longer. Just two minutes.

Lynne kept talking my ear off, I kept smiling dumbly, oblivious to what she was saying. I suppressed the urge to check my watch. Luckily for me, Lynne was ranting about the dangers of pairing fishnet stockings with shorts and didn't expect me to chime in with anything but an occasional nod or grunt.

The two hundred and forty seconds felt more like a lifetime, but at the end, the jarring blare of the warning bell was like music to my ears. "Sorry, Lynne, I don't want to be late..." I said, interrupting Lynne mid-sentence. She grinned. "Yeah, of course. Go ahead. By the way, there's a sale on earrings at the mall. I'm going to check it out after school today. Would you want to come with?"

I shook my head quickly. "Sorry, I... have to study tonight. For the math test on Monday," I lied. "Not all of us are mathematical prodigies, you know."

Lynne shrugged as she turned to go. "Can't help that I'm a genius. Some have greatness thrust upon them," she quoted. "But hey, I get it. You go ahead."

She walked off. I lingered in front of my locker for a few more seconds just to be on the safe side, then hurried to catch Ace before he walked off.

As soon as he saw me coming, he opened his mouth — presumably to tell me something — but I cut him off. "Meet me in the forest after school, by our log. We'll have more time to talk then."

With that, I scurried off to my next class.

I was convinced that the second hand of the clock was moving backwards.

Tick... tick... tick...

I'd thought that the two-minute wait at the beginning of the day was long, but sitting still and waiting for school to be over in all my classes proved me wrong. It was excruciating.

But I was in my last class of the day, and there was only ten minutes left until I could run to the forest and finally see Ace.

Tick... tick... tick...

I stared at the clock on the wall, feeling sure that I'd die of old age before school was over.

Sitting and watching the time go by isn't going to help my boredom, I told myself. I ought to get something done. Or at least look like I'm being productive...

Sighing, I directed my attention to my worksheet.

Ugh. Trigonometry. Why, oh, why did it have to be Trig?

Yeah, okay, screw this. There was absolutely no chance that I'd be able to focus on my math homework today. Zero. Zip. Zilch.

Instead, I found myself doodling absentmindedly. My pencil sketched a strong, straight line that curled up at the end; another one stemming up from it; a swooping curve; a head of messy black hair...

Hair? Looking down at my page, I found that without even thinking about it, I'd drawn a perfect portrait of — who else? — Ace Renshaw. Soulful eyes, strong jawline, smirking mouth...

Good grief. I'm the poster child for "shy female bad romance protagonist". Dreaming about him in class? Meeting up with him in secret in the woods? Drawing his face ten times more handsome than humanly possible? Can you say "cliche"?

I glanced back up at the clock.

Still seven minutes left...

I was exasperated. How had only three minutes passed?

I slumped forward in my chair and resigned myself to my fate of drawing unrealistically handsome Ace-faces while I waited.

Huh. I could think of worse ways to pass the time.

The bell rang.

I was so excited to hear it that I swear I almost fell out of my chair and died.

"Good luck with your studying tonight, Sera," Lynne said to me encouragingly.

"Thanks! Bye!" I called over my shoulder as I raced out of the classroom.

I got out of my car and literally ran into the forest. I couldn't take another moment of not seeing Ace.

Sure enough, there he was, waiting for me. I'd just known that he'd understand what I meant when I told him to go to "our log". The place where Ace and I had collided in the forest, where we'd sat down and he'd told me all about his sister, where our friendship had first started to bloom. It was quickly becoming my favorite spot.

My face lit up as soon as I saw him. "Ace! Oh my gosh, I have so many questions —"

I cut myself off when I saw the expression on his face.

Despondency and hopelessness were written all over him. His entire body seemed to shrink into itself, and his hands were trembling. He looked up when I arrived, but he did so with such a weary air about him that it made my heart just break.

So I hadn't just imagined it this morning. I took a deep breath and sat down next to him. "Ace? What's wrong?"

And then.

You know how when you see your parents or someone that you've always seen as a strong, confident person cry for the first time, it's just the most unnerving thing? It feels... wrong. It feels like they've turned into a whole new person.

When tears appeared just like magic on Ace's cheeks, that was exactly how I felt. And it was like magic. Because Ace would never cry. Never. The only explanation for the liquid pearls that now shone in Ace's eyes was sorcery. A trick of the light, perhaps.

But no. The emotion on his face was very, very real.

It terrified the living daylights out of me.