Wildflowers

[Dill the Pickle]

So, it’s me, starting another story when I haven’t finished my others! Heh, I got inspired, I guess...

Well, this was super fun to write! I’ll write more if you guys want more. I really enjoyed this.

So, here it is! Hope you enjoy!

 

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There’s a girl I always see walking home from school. She just stands there, in the fields next to the school’s JV baseball field, staring off into the distance. She never notices me, even when I drop something or straight up stare at her. She doesn’t ever notice me.

 

I know her, but I don’t know her name. She’s in my Honors Chemistry class. I would’ve rather been in Engineering Technology if it wasn’t for her. I used to be devastated that I had Chem for my first class — Science wasn’t exactly my strong suit and I liked Engineering a lot better — but she gave me a different outlook it.

 

But not intentionally. She doesn’t even sit near me. Most of the time, the closest thing to talking consisted of unintentional, awkwardly held stares. The only time we’ve sort of talk was the first lab we did. We were both too shy to team up with anybody else and then too nervous to talk to each other. We had mostly talked to each other in “um”s and stammered out sentences.

 

Back then, I was too nervous to catch her name. I was too focused on trying not to hyperventilate because, wow, she was actually kind of talking to me and I was actually sort of talking to her. I couldn’t even look at her name; I bet it was right in the top right corner of our lab report with slightly neater handwriting than I’d ever have.

 

I don’t know why, but that lab, halfway into the first quarter was when I realized I liked her. I’d see her around my Freshman year, hell, even in Middle school I’d seen her, but only after that lab did I realize me casually watching her was me watching for her. For years. I thought back then I only kind of knew her because we were always battling for top of the class.

 

I guess not. I guess I convinced myself that she didn’t matter that much and purposely forgot her name and purposely never learned it, too.

 

One day, I wanted to talk to her. Learn the name Chemistry girl who stood in the wildflowers after school, staring off into the distance. There was two problems, though.

 

One: I was still too nervous to. After four years — I know — I still have only talked to her once, maybe twice at most.

 

Two: I‘m kind of, sort of, like seriously allergic to wildflowers. If I tried to talk to her, not even five steps in I’d like, die, and then she’d be like “who is this weird girl just sneezing everywhere?” and definitely not want to talk to me. So yeah. No. Not happening.

 

You wanna know what else was not happening? Me talking to her in class. That’d be so awkward and weird: she barely knew who I was (probably) and do me just up and talking to her at the end of class... No. Just no.

 

So yeah. I needed an excuse, a reason to talk to her. Homework? Nah, that was too cliché. She probably knew that I got really good grades, anyways, as our names always used to get rattled off together when the teacher announced the top test scores in Middle School.

 

Now I felt even dumber for still not knowing her name.

 

I needed something else... something else... Nothing seemed to work, though. Maybe something on my walk home, when I passed her... Maybe I could just sit there? No, that would make me look stupid, and probably just be awkward as she still wouldn’t talk to me.

 

The girl in the wildflowers... The wildflowers...

 

No. That was just insanely dumb.

 

...But it might work.

 

Getting into the plan was the part where I started to regret thinking I was smart for going along with an idea that might work. Might work never seemed to be a good thing, and this time was no exception. Well, it was an exception, but in the sense I guided my plan more by emotion than rational. Which, mind you, is very rare for me to do.

 

Oh, who am I kidding? It’s only like that in Academics. I probably cry at least once a week, there’s got to be some emotion there.

 

But anyways, it was pretty dumb. Literally, my plan was to not take my allergy medication and walk by the very thing I was allergic to so I could ask someone their name. I didn’t realize how stupid that sounded until I was actually walking up to the wildflowers and starting to feel my nose burn. I already felt horrible from the high pollen count today, which I didn’t know about until I got outside the door of my house and got assaulted by the scents. I wasn’t going to let anybody know that I didn’t take my meds, though, so I just bared through it until I got to school, where the AC helped a little bit. Needless to say, I didn’t walk by the wildflowers in the morning. She wouldn’t have been there, anyways.

 

I didn’t help my allergen fight that I was looking directly at the flowers. The vibrant colors, the red and yellow hues, and the occasional purple all made the girl look amazing. I couldn’t tell what color I liked best on her. I mean, that probably wasn’t the thought process I should be having right now, or, ever, but it just... happened. The girl had distracted me from my burning nose for a while.

 

I stopped walking at halfway point of the wildflower field. That was when I noticed the wind was blowing directly at me, and if I wouldn’t have noticed it would’ve been a lot better for everyone. Just the knowledge that pollen was blowing directly at me set me off even more.

 

Yeah. This wasn’t exactly the greatest plan.

 

I just wanted to know her name... Why did I subject myself to this? It wouldn’t even work: how was I supposed to ask her name while I was having a sneezing fit? She would just think I’m weird or crazy or probably both. So I abandoned my plan, running as fast as I could to get past the wildflowers.

 

Problem is, it was already too late. It was too late by the time I stepped even remotely close to that flower field. I was an idiot. An idiot, idiot, idiot-

 

“Um... are you okay?” I turned around and my heart stopped. The Chemistry girl was looking right at me, her eyebrows creased and head tilted in what I could only assume was confusion. It took my a second to breathe again, which wasn’t a good idea since all I got was air laced with a catastrophically high amount of pollen.

 

“Y-Yeah, I... hih- I just-“ No no no, she was talking to me, it might actually work, no, I couldn’t do this now! “I f-forgot... to- hih-... t-take my... m-meds...”

 

“A-Ah...” The girl looked down at the wildflowers around her. “Y-Yeah, there’s kind of... a lot...”

 

My nose apparently didn’t like hearing about how many wildflowers there was, as it flared up. “S-Sorry, for... hih... d-disturbing... hih... you...”

 

“Oh, no, i-it’s fine, really.” The girl smiled. For one second, I forgot the fire of torture my nose was going through. “H-Hey, I’ll, uh, walk you home, if that’s, uh, okay?”

 

I couldn’t process what I was hearing fast enough. When I finally wrapped my head around it, already a good five seconds of awkward silence had passed between us. “S-Sure, I don’t see... hih-Hih!... why not...”

 

“I just feel... kind of bad for you,” the girl explained. She bent down and heaved something up from the wildflowers, which turned out to be her backpack. I always wondered where she kept it. “Th-That’s... a weird reason, isn’t it?”

 

“N-Nah, n-not at all.” Finally. I got a sentence out without my breath hitching. Though it wouldn’t last much longer as a gust of air blew the flowers in my direction once again. I didn’t know if I could last much longer.

 

The girl stumbled as she appeared next to me, shaking the wildflowers. Somehow, she still looked graceful almost falling over. “I have to go anyways... But it’s fine with you, right?”

 

“O-Of course, or else I-I wouldn’t...” Oh no. Why. Why. Why. Why why why why why. Why was my nose doing this now, when she was right next to me? That’d just be weird. Awkward. Embarrassing. Why did I think this was a good idea again?

 

“It’s okay,” the girl said, smiling sympathetically. There was no way she wasn’t an angel. “I’m allergic, too.”

 

“Wha- hih’hikshoo! Hikshoo!” I couldn’t even get my words out. At least my sneezes weren’t like, obnoxiously loud or something. That’d definitely scare her off. I didn’t want to do that. I tried to hold off on sneezing so I could talk, and it kinda hurt holding my nose shut for a second, but it worked. “W-Wait, wh-what?”

 

“I’m allergic to wildflowers,” she repeated, not even seeming fazed by me. Either she was tolerant or completely oblivious. Didn’t matter to me which, because it was still a blessing. “I take medication, obviously, but I really like them. So I learned to tolerate them.”

 

Could this girl not make me like her more? She learned to tolerate her own allergen. That’s pretty badass to me. And for an innocent reason, too.

 

“Hey, we should, um, probably get you home,” she said, looking at my face. Oh, yeah. It was probably red. Mostly from the wildflowers, not her. Hopefully. “Shouldn’t keep you around wildflowers for longer than we need to.”

 

“Y-Yeah.” The way she said we, like we already knew each other... I really, really liked it. I wanted her to say it more. I just wanted to know her. I almost fell behind as she walked forward, too lost on my thoughts. “Hey, what’s y-your... what’s your name?” I almost sneezed right there. Almost. Still too close.

 

“Abilene.” Abilene. Wow. That was so much prettier than my name. I liked the way it rolled off her tongue, like she rehearsed it many times before, but it was still natural. “Yours?”

 

“Ah... Autumn.” Autumn was a rather normal name in my opinion. Maybe that’s why she didn’t know me, either. I was rather relieved she didn’t know my name. It reassured me I wasn’t stupid for not knowing hers. “S-Sorry I... met you... like this.”

 

“No, it’s fine.” Abilene (wow, I really liked that name) smiled at me, a genuine, innocent smile. “Um, which way do you go?” She asked as we reached the sidewalk.

 

“T-This way.” I pointed to the left.

 

“Oh.” She frowned as she looked to the right: she must go that way. I felt strangely happy that she looked disappointed. She was disappointed that she couldn’t talk to me. Well, probably not. Maybe. “Well, I’ll see you around!”

 

“B-Bye,” I stammered as I watched her walk the other way. Abilene. Abilene. Abilene. So that was her name. I actually got it. My plan actually worked.

 

I leaned back again the wire fence surrounding the school I was only inches outside of. She turned the corner, and I watched her walk through the holes in the fence until she was out of sight. I breathed out. More like sighed, really. She was gone. Abilene was gone.

 

Of course, that was when my nose decided to remember that I just didn’t give it what it wanted for the past five minutes. I looked behind me and saw that, oh crap, the flower field extended to here and I had forgot since I was so caught up in stalking people. I tried to hold it back, then realized that there was literally nobody around me. So I gave up.

 

“Hih’hikshh! Akshh! AksHH!” I hadn’t realized I needed that so badly until I actually did it. And boy, did it feel good. “Hih... Hih’hihksHH!”

 

Well, it felt good the first few times. Then I tried to get away from the flowers so I wouldn’t get caught up in a fit, but it was pretty hard, considering I was already in one. I ended up having to stop at door of my house, just trying to breathe in clean air.

 

“Hih... hikshh!” I was a little tired of sneezing by then, after a few minutes, but I guess I kind of deserved it. I could’ve just asked her the entire time, but I decided to do something strange and obnoxious.

 

At least it actually worked.

[Ember]

Wooooow I loved this so much!

[Sneezingnonstop]

This was so cute!!! And I understand what you mean by not being able to complete stories, hopefully this one will though!

[Shylurker68]

This is so cute! I love a good shy wlw fic. 😍