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I finally, finally decided to finish that short story from this old thread.
Here it is. It's cheesy and dumb but I kinda like cheesy and dumb things, so idk.
The echoing slam of rubber-soled sneakers sounded like a war drum on the asphalt streets. The owner of those shoes was named Cecil, and he wanted to escape.
Anywhere. Nowhere. Crawl in a hole and never come out - not a lot of bottomless holes in Nevada, though, as far as he knew.
Regardless, it was with sudden apprehension that Cecil realized his flight path was leading him in a panicked daze directly back to his house. This was no good - he was not ready to bear that just yet.
A right turn marked a small kiddy-park that he always passed on his way to and from school. For the first time in years, he decided to take that turn. The sun was setting - school had long since been let out and all the younger kids would be eating dinner. Meaning the park was miraculously empty.
Thank God. He wanted to be alone.
The park was built on a terraced hill, with a sloped road behind it and a steep cliff drop in front.
The cliff was - of course - guarded by two sets of rails to stop particularly stupid children from falling to their doom. Hushed schoolyard rumors tell that the second set of railings were only built after a woman jumped from the cliff and killed herself - but seeing as the cliff was a meager story and a half tall, no one really believed it. The story continued to be spread, though, because everyone wished the playground was haunted by a real ghost. Variety is the spice of life, after all - fourteen years of swings and slides get boring after a while.
Cecil glanced with indifference at the various play-apparatuses, from seesaws to jungle-gyms. All childlike joy seemed to have been killed from his heart this morning, and instead he walked with heavy feet towards the lines of simple wooden benches that faced cliff-side forward, directly into the golden eye of the setting sun, half lidded beneath roofs and awnings of shingled houses.
With hands shaking from adrenaline, Cecil grabbed hold of the thick metal inner-railing. Knuckles white, he took a deep breath and screamed into the wind, with the sun as his only witness.
“I want to be a seamstress!”
“Uh…?”
At least, he thought the sun was his only witness. Face burning with embarrassment, Cecil whipped around to see a tall girl with imposing glasses sitting on the bench he had marched straight passed. She was giving him the evil eye.
Anger and embarrassment embolden his regular reserved nature.
“What? You gonna make fun of me, too?” He challenged.
The girl pressed a finger between the pages of her book before tapping it shut. “...about what?”
The death glare made it hard for Cecil to believe this question was guided by curiosity, and not something more sinister. But he had nothing to lose at this point, and was dying to let all his grievances come tumbling out.
“That I love sewing. That I get an ‘A’ in every Home Economics class. That I joined the sewing club today only to discover that I’m the only guy in it among twenty-nine girlsand they will never let me live it down.”
He rambled on, unsure if she was even listening.
“One of my classmates spray-painted ‘fag’ on my locker. Not very original are they? I hid in the gym storage room until all the other students left because I know they’re gonna make fun of me for the rest of my life about this - or, for the rest of high school, which might as well be the rest of my life - all because I want to be a seamstress… or, uh… whatever. What’s a male seamstress called?”
“Tailor. Or seamster if you want an archaic old English word.” The girl said, closing her book entirely and placing it on the bench.
Cecil was honored she was willing to lose her place in the book. This seemed like an accomplishment.
“Seamster, huh? That sounds kinda cool...”
Leaning forward, the girl crossed her legs onto the bench, hands in her lap. Her posture was pure interest and engagement in the conversation, but her face still read like she wanted him to jump off the cliff.
“They really spray painted your locker? Isn’t that something only cartoon bullies from the nineties do?”
Cecil scratched his chin. “Yup. Neon pink. Capital letters. They aren’t really ones for subtlety, you know?”
He leaned against the railing. “I’m Cecil by the way. Summerbell High.”
“Victoria. I go to the St. Augustine’s private school.”
“Mmm. What’s your problem then? Why’re you hanging out here instead of with friends?”
Victoria stuck out her tongue. “I don’t really talk good.”
“You talk fine to me.”
“This is a bizarre scenario,” She laughed, “talking one on one is the only socializing I’m okay at - and it happens pretty rarely. School is all about cliques. You have to talk in groups, eat, study and be friends in groups… it’s tiresome, and I hate it.”
Cecil wrinkled his nose. “I never thought about it. I guess I don’t really mind - being in a group makes it easier to be overlooked. So you aren’t singled out or bullied. I, uh, kinda shot myself in the foot on that one, though.
My group of ‘friends’ have turned tail - or maybe ‘survival buddies’ would be more accurate.”
Victoria nodded. “I get the idea of ‘survival buddies’, but that just sounds too tiresome. It’s gonna sound kinda pathetic, but I have no friends at school - but I’d rather it be that way that acting fake.”
He grimaced. “Well, now that my fake ones have fled, I guess I don’t have any, either.”
“Good riddance. No point wasting your time and energy on someone who doesn’t even have your back.”
“Yeah, but I’ll miss having someone to talk to…” Their eyes met. “Uh, are you here every day at this time...?”
“No. I’m just here because I told my mom I was going to a friend’s house to study. I don’t want her worrying because I have no school friends.”
“Ha. Didn’t you just say it’s tiresome to act fake?”
Victoria was mortified to be caught out on this hypocrisy - she hid her mouth behind her hands as he face turned pink - and yet the glare was still there. It was finally dawning on Cecil that this was just a serious case of resting bitch face. Not so bad when you get used to it.
Cecil rubbed the back of his head. “Hey, no worries. Everyone's a bit of a hypocrite... do you want to, like, hang out after school sometimes? We can meet up right here.”
Victoria nodded, a smile piercing through the sullen expression. “Yeah. Works for me.”
“Awesome, maybe I’ll bring some of my sewing projects. God knows I can’t get ‘em done at school.”
Stretching her arms, Victoria stood from the bench and slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Right. See you then.”
Cecil felt a vague pounding in the back of his head. His hands seemed a little bit colder and number than he was used. Not quite sure where the courage came from - he found himself reaching a hand into his pocket and saying, “do you want to trade numbers?”
Victoria nearly dropped her bag. “Sure. Okay.”
They traded numbers quietly, and went their separate ways after saying goodbye.
Cecil still held his phone in his hands, staring in a daze at his phone’s screen.
It was asking him what he wanted the new contact's name to be - he couldn't shake a stupid grin.
He tapped only two characters.
The new contact will be named: <3
Is this okay?
END
Big thank yous to everyone in the old thread who offered suggestions and such! Especially Hentoki's suggestion to look at other people was very helpful because I ended up reading a ton of Reddit 'How I met my Wife/Husband' stories which were really enlightening.
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