Misplaced (COMPLETED)

the beginning

Wind rustled through the tree tops and blew my ginger hair across my shoulders in warm, gentle puffs. If I looked towards the horizon I could see the last rays of crimson sunset painting the darkening sky in giddy strokes. Smiling silently in contentment, I shuffled further into the leather jacket that had been draped over my shoulders. It smell like him. And after a few more hours of wearing the dense fabric, I hoped the intoxicating odour would rub off onto my own clothes.

"You have a favourite flavour?" His throaty voice pierced the silence.

I looked up into his rolling green eyes in question before catching sight of a small ice-cream parlour not far from our position by the lake. Coloured in pastel with enticing pink and white stripes coating the door and window frames, Moe's Ice-Creamery seemed to be the physical embodiment of everything right with the world.

Without meaning to, a child-like grin slipped across my mouth,"Choc-mint. Yours?"

"Honeycomb. Wait here, yeah?"

Barely two minutes later, I saw him jogging back over to me, a childish grin of his own whipped across his face and two double-scooped cones clutched in his hands. After passing the baby green one to me, I refrained from making a girly giggle when I felt the same cool hand slip into my own.

Technically it was our first date. Just like Cinderella, we were living a dream that lasted until curfew struck at half-past-ten pm. Unlike the fairy tale, I hoped we'd have more than one fleeting night of fluttering butterflies and giddy grins.

We walked with our frosty snacks along Morris Lake, watching the sun slip beneath the horizon and the moon rising to take her place. Both of us were unsure how long to watch the scenery for and how long to allow our eyes to linger on the other person. This uncertainty resulted in stolen glances and nervous laughter that only fed my growing swarm of butterflies. This feeling was further amplified as the wind picked up, sending his charcoal hair fluttering across his forehead in soft wisps. How was this true? How had I managed to earn his affections?

Eventually our stroll came to a stop as we approached a wooden deck over looking the widest part of the lake. As a kid I had been there many times before. But that night, everything looked different. The moonlight hit and reflected the quiet, lapping waves in a peaceful sort of way. The trees danced in the wind and the crickets that were out in full force that night, serenaded us with a tune I never wanted to forget. For one perfect night my life had become a non-fictional Disney tale. I was the princess who had lost my tiara and he was the prince who convinced me I didn't need one.

One mississippi. Two mississippi. I counted the seconds before someone, hopefully not me, would have the courage to break the silence. I had known him long before that night. We were fifteen years old then and we'd been on friendly terms since the beginning of high school almost three years ago. However, I had never been caught in such an awkward period of silence as I had then.

Three mississippi. The moment broke and with the sort of gleam in his eye that is only witnessed a handful of times within a lifetime, he said to me with the perfect mixture of excitement and nervousness, "Will you be my girlfriend?"

It didn't take long for three letters to tumble from my vocal cords and the beat in my heart to pick up exponentially. "Yes." That was it. That was the moment I knew no matter how things panned out, I had for the first time in my life, fallen for a boy. And his name? The name that would be forever - no matter what events were to spiral between us - forever be stitched onto a tiny piece of my heart? Zachary Evans.

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A/N:

And so the story begins.

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