First Meeting
What Sebastian saw as he reached the top of the stairs was a silver-haired girl holding the pieces of a wooden chair.
Oh.
He quickly made his way to the kitchen, not prepared to meet a new person.
“Well, it looks salvageable. I should be able to get it fixed up by tomorrow,” he heard his mom saying.
“How much will that cost?” the new girl asked.
“Free of charge—consider it my housewarming gift. I would offer to give you a brand-new chair, but this did belong to Harold. Yoba rest his soul.”
Housewarming? Harold? Oh right, someone is moving into that old farm.
“Are you sure? I have some money left over after groceries.”
“Absolutely! You just focus on getting your first crops growing. By the way, have you met my son yet?”
Oh no.
“Your son? No, I’ve only met Pierre and Abigail so far. I’ve been so busy trying to clear out some of the land on the farm I haven’t had time to explore town yet.”
“I thought not.... Hey Sebastian, I know you’re hiding in the kitchen. Get your butt out here.”
Oh fuck.
No choice, he had to go meet her. He groaned at the prospect, then braced himself as he made his way over to them. He could see her face from this direction. Her complexion was that of someone who was pale from being indoors all day, but whose skin could handle the sun. She had round cheeks, deep brown eyes, and a lip ring at the center of her plump bottom lip. Worst of all, she was adorable. He gulped. Keep it cool, he told himself.
She held her hand out as he got closer and said, “Hi, I’m Al, the new farmer.”
He couldn’t shake her hand, or she would feel how clammy his hands were at that moment. Keeping his hands in his pockets he said “Oh. You just moved in, right? Cool.” Not cool. That was the lamest thing I could have said.
Al was looking at him expectantly. Her other hand had clutched the bottom of her shorts.
“Out of all the places you could live, you chose Pelican Town?” Nope. That was worse. Why did I say that? She’s never going to talk to me again.
She lowered her hand, looking a little sad. “It was my grandfather’s farm,” she said in a small voice. He could feel his mom staring daggers into him.
“Right,” was all he could say. He went back into the basement that served as his bedroom, ears burning and heart pounding. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” he sighed to himself once his door was shut.
--
“I’m so sorry about that. I’m going to have a talk with that boy later,” Robin said, embarrassment practically dripping from her words. Al smiled as best as she could.
“It’s fine.” It was not fine. “Well, I need to get back to planting crops. Thank you again. When should I come back for the chair?”
“I’ll send it over to you when it’s done. Good luck with the farming.”
“Sounds good. See you around.” Al waved ‘goodbye’ and headed back towards Moonlight Farm. She really did have a lot of work to do.
-
“Stupid boys,” Al muttered as she her hoe broke into the earth, “Why can’t they make more sense?” She continued to till the soil.
“I don’t care anyway. What does it matter if one cute boy was mean to me?” She immediately chastised herself for admitting he was cute. Hitting the ground again, “I’m done with him. I don’t need to speak to him again. There are plenty of other people in this town, probably.” She had only met a handful of people thus far, and she was already taking out her frustration on dirt.
-
Al finished watering her crops just after dark. She looked up at the sky, and her breath was taken away. The night before she had been too focused on the overgrowth to notice, but an uncountable number of stars covered the sky. She went back inside to grab some dinner and a cup of chamomile tea to sit with on the porch. The lights of the city from her old apartment window had nothing on this sight.
“I hope I don’t screw this up, for your sake and my own, Grandpa,” she said to the sky.