Unintentionally Falling

chapter one

Aaron

Autumn always comes when you're not fully done with summer, it's a type of fleeting melancholia that I think everyone has experienced once in their life.

Change.

 The small buds that lay delicately on trees change, and sometimes depending on the circumstances it can morph into something so delicate and beautiful. The tiny buds occasionally turn into something so beautiful, that not even the human eye can detect it.

The poets that I've read about often write how autumn signifies change whether good or bad. Autumn change makes for a new fresh start for the trees, and how the change rejuvenated them. This apparently makes them even stronger. 

Autumn is a season where things are supposed to change; for better or for worse.

But today is certainly not fall weather.  It's one of those days where the weather is warm but not too warm where it feels like outside is a blazing desert.

 It's the perfect weather to do something, it's the main reason why I chose to sit on a park bench, drink sweet tea and read The Book Thief. 

I found this park bench today by a stroke of luck while walking--searching for a place to read. A giant cherry blossom tree towers over the park bench providing shade. The cherry blossom tree seemed to have blossomed a while back. Little blush pink flowers have been falling off, and they're scattered around both the bunch as well as the concrete walkway. 

My fingers flip through another page and my eyes glance at the page number below. I usually enjoy taking time to really read it, but it seemed like it wasn't possible with this book. I felt the need to keep going and going till the end. 

A gust of late summertime breeze hits my face, making my hair fan over my eyes. I have to run my fingers through my hair a few times to get my hair out of my face. When I finally succeeded, I catch a girl approaching me.

She strolls on over without a care in the world. But then she really walks closer, close enough that I can actually see her properly. She's gorgeous--like she turns heads beautiful. The way she holds herself together makes me almost think that she understands she is.

With brunette waves,  sunkissed golden skin most likely from California's late August sun... I don't think— no... I've never seen a girl as pretty as her up close before.

Why is she coming near me?  She's literally walking here.

Did I do something? But I've never even talked to her. 

Was I staring? Maybe I was rude? 

Inwardly I slap myself in the face for my foolish thought process going back and forth. Outwardly,  I take a breath trying to play cool. I've never even met her, why do I think I've done something? 

She doesn't even make eye contact with me and plops down on the bench next to me, basically ignoring my presence as a whole. I try to go back to reading my book. Keyword: try. She's pretty noisy, and the sound of paper crunching  that crackles through the air doesn't make it any easier.

Briefly I peek over to see her lay a brown paper bag on her lap, she opens it widely and grabs something folded in neon yellow tissue paper. With two hands, she carefully unwraps it like she's a surgeon and one wrong move will ruin whatever is folded inside forever.

After what like 10 seconds she's finally unwrapped the yellow tissue paper to reveal to the audience a... Big Mac?

She took all that time and careful precision to unwrap a  greasy burger from McDonalds'. The corners of her lips pulls up, grinning widelt at the burger. It's such a jocular type of grin that I can't help but smile at how excited she looks to eat it.