Seventeen: Rooster.
“Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.”
-Friedrich Nietzsche
Aunt Sheridan is a pack-rat. She doesn't need stuff, but she likes stuff, maybe even more than she likes cooking, so she's always showing up bogged down with stuff. On Monday, she turned up to pick me up after school with a legion of baggage in the backseat of her little car.
“I guess you went shopping,” I observed, but very cautiously. Say too much to Aunt Sheridan and you end up with a never-ending story.
“Oh, I did.” She turned to me, grinning, and began to tell me about her day of Christmas shopping as she drove away. She'd managed to have every family member accounted for.
“And I got this amazing set of paintbrushes for your cousin, Peter; you know, the one who paints? Well, they were on sale at Target so they were only four ninety-nine...”
Peter is my second cousin in Canada who we've never met, and who I doubt really does like painting. He's five; he likes smearing colors on the wall with his hands in a way that's cute enough for his mom to take pictures and post the masterpieces on Facebook. I told my aunt this, but she just huffed and said that we'd be encouraging his artistic talent and Sam, when that boy's got a gallery in the Louvre you'll wish you agreed.
I love my aunt. But sometimes, I don't.
“Oh and Sam,” she said, stalling the car as she approached a red light, “I went to a flea market in Beaverton and got you a great sweater.”
I was immediately wary, because the things that my aunt usually thinks are great are either broken or bedazzled. I held my breath as she reached into the backseat, and even though I had my hopes up that maybe I would be wrong, that sweater was everything I expected it to be and was even worse besides.
“What is that?” I demanded. The sweater was brown, but centered on it was some kind of furry, feathery, white and red creature that popped out from the simple fabric.
Aunt Sheridan stared at it. “I'm not sure. I think it's a rooster.” She was still examining it when the light turned green, and cars behind her began to honk. I opened my mouth to tell her, but she continued, “But you love it, don't you?”
“Well, I mean, I—”
“You love it,” she affirmed, tossing it onto my lap and simultaneously flooring the gas pedal.
Nothing was ever up to question when it came to Aunt Sheridan.
I stared at the sweater dubiously, already hearing Carson and his friends' snide comments about it in my head. Maybe, I thought, there was some way to slyly burn it while my aunt was at work. Maybe you would want it. Well, probably not—but maybe you could burn it.
As I eyed the thing, Aunt Sheridan glanced over at me, peeling her eyes from the road every few seconds to grin. When I finally turned and looked back at her, confused, her smile just grew.
“So, Sam,” she sung, “when will you be asking Ellery out on a real date?”
I felt my jaw drop. That, certainly, was a question I wasn't prepared for at all. Was I even going to ask you out? I wanted to, sure. I'd thought about it. I'd also never asked a girl out before with positive results, and even though I didn't think you would blatantly reject me (Like Kayle Park in freshman year), I didn't think I'd be able to handle it if you rejected me at all.
Better safe than sorry, and all that.
“Ah, well, I wasn't really—”
“Because you're going to ask her out, right?”
“Maybe, but I don't know if—”
“Well, you want to, though, right?”
I scratched my head, blushing. “Er, yeah, I do. I just don't want her to, um, well, say no.”
Aunt Sheridan laughed loudly, glancing at the sweater in my hands. “Wear that, and you'll be fine,” she advised. “No girl in her right mind would turn down a boy with a rooster on his sweater.”
-----
A/N: what is this? no idea. today's prompt was rooster and i was just like whatdoiwritehereahhhhhh-
but yeah i went christmas shopping today so somehow this is was came out of it and yeah.
dedicated to avriale because she's just great and TOTALLY WORTHY of a dedication <3
