.three.
The next day, Arabella was ready to start investigating. Since her secret admirer had left her the presents before anyone made their way out to the training ground, the seventeen year old decided she would be there waiting to catch whoever he was. She walked onto the training ground when she saw the players go into the locker room. There was a set of bleachers nearby, behind the bench area and she hid behind them, allowing her to see out onto the grass.
Her ocean blue eyes were trained on the entrance, where the players would be arriving. The first was the shy footballer she knew from when she was a little girl. He looked around suspiciously and Arabella could feel her heart race.
Erik slowly closed the distance between himself and the bench area, It would be a few more minutes before the rest of them would come outside. Arabella kept her eyes on him, peering over the cool metal of the bleachers and she saw him looking around for a second time. He reached into his pocket and just as he was going to bring something out was when his bright eyes spotted her hidden behind the bleachers. The footballer tensed at the sight of her and coughed awkwardly, thinking himself caught. Still, he would deny it at all cost. He was too embarrassed to admit he was sending the coach's daughter presents secretly. "I see you." He called out nervously.
Knowing she'd been seen, Arabella stepped out into plain sight, her eyes looking down at her feet like a child who'd been caught doing something bad. "What are you doing out here so early?" She asked him.
Erik scratched the back of his head sheepishly, thinking of anything to tell her. Something that she might find believeable. "I changed into my uniform quickly." He shrugged. Remembering she had been spying on him, he asked her the same question, "What are you doing out here?" He couldn't believe he was actually speaking to her, or that she was speaking to him. She was so sophisticated and beautiful; Erik felt himself lucky to be in her presence. Being the coaches daughter, he saw her as more precious because she was forbidden to him. Unable to hold eye contact with her for too long, he looked down at his sweaty palms and wiped them on his training pants.
The girl with auburn hair styled into the same bob cut he knew, shrugged in response to his question. "I like to sit out here and watch the team practice. Its better than sitting in papa's office doing nothing."
When he said nothing else to her, Arabella took a few steps towards the bench she'd made her own in the past few days. She slung her bookbag off her shoulder and let it fall on the bench gently, plopping down next to it. Since she hadn't noticed her bag was open, and her leather bound book fell out, opened to one of the pages. Embarrassed, she reached down to pick it up, but she hadn't been fast enough. He had already reached for it too and lifted it up, his eyes falling onto see one of her drawings.
Arabella gasped, snatching the book from his hand. Her face went red in an instant.
"Did you draw those?" He wondered. Once the words left his mouth, he felt stupid for saying them. "Of course you drew them...What I meant to say was they're really good."
"Its nothing." She bit her lip nervously.
"But..." He began, wondering about the drawings in her book. "Why do you draw us looking so tired?"
She offered a shrug. "You boys work so hard, and I notice when you get tired. But I also drew you all looking happy because no matter how tired you all look, you're always smiling. Football is something you enjoy."
A few feet away, they both turned at the sound of laughter as the rest of the team made their way out onto the field for practice. Arabella noticed how Mats eyed the two of them suspiciously. She knew he was planning to interrogate some of the other players, likely the youngest of them. But she wondered if that was all just a cover up he was using to steer suspicion away from himself since he had been so quick to offer his help. Arabella decided she would keep a closer eye on him and Erik. She thought they were the two most likely to be her secret admirer.
Maybe it was the case that her admirer was just that, an admirer, and not a love interest. Nevertheless, she wanted to know who he was. The curiosity was eating away at her.
Offering a brief nod as a sign of goodbye, Erik left her to join the rest of the boys.
He wanted to be as far from her as possible before her father could find them together. He didn't want problems. He wanted to be close to her, but he figured watching her from afar was enough. She was out of his league anyway, or so he believed.
At on point during the training, Arabella left the benches in search of the toilets. She left her book bag there, she thought no one would dare to tamper with it because of the respect they all had for her father and his wishes for them to stay away from her. But when she returned, she was surprised at what she found. Her face contorted in confusion when she noticed her bag seemed more filled than it was when she left for the toilets. She opened it to find a small white box, with white lettering etched across it, that could fit in her palm. Inside it were four pieces of Teuton chocolates, the most expensive in the country. Just one piece of it was two hundred euros, and there were four pieces in that box.
The coach's daughter looked around, wondering who had left her such an expensive present. But no one would meet her gaze. She searched her bag for more clues and found a folded sheet of paper. Grabbing it in her hand, she unfolded it to read yet another poem her admirer had left for her. The words of love were ones she could never get used to. The fact that someone cared enough to do these things for her created a vivid picture in her mind of the man her admirer might be, and she began to care for him as well.
"Bella,
a nest of copper entangled
on your head, a nest
the color of dark honey
where my heart burns and rests,
bella." -- an admirer
-
i have the song 'bohemian rhapsody' in my head. i should be working on my art project, but instead i am here. but my art teacher is like a crazy hippie woman. i mean, i love hippies. my other art teachers look like hippies too, but this one is just over the top. i am taking design, and she connects every aspect of art to feelings.
last time she asked us to draw angry lines...yeah.
anyway, i hope you all like the chapter. i'll try to update again as soon as possible. and thank you for reading!
random lame detail...i'm getting paid on friday. imma be ballin' my nuggets! *plays 'make it rain' by little wayne whilst money fliest around me* better grab an umbrella cause the forecast calls for rainnnnn. ahaha.
i'm tired. i think i'll just go to sleep and do the project in the morning. it has to do with negative space and all this stupid shit no one cares about. i just wanna paint.
btw, there is no such thing as a chocolates company called 'teuton' which sells outrageously expensive chocolates. i invented it for the purpose of this chapter. i believe the teutons were a germanic tribe that once existed in the area that is now germany, or somewhere close by. and teuton is also the name by which the mexican commentators on my sports channel refer to the german national team, 'la seleccion teutona' (the teuton team) or 'los teutones' (the teutons).
-clary xx
