Part 13: Cherry Brooks

After school was done for the day, I packed up all of my supplies and walked as fast as I possibly could towards Paradise Park. I had to wait two minutes for the traffic light to let me across first since the roads are practically busy around this area all the time. I still managed to pass by the park’s entrance anyway. This entrance has a specially designed gateway which lit up four certain themed hues in observance of seasonal weather conditions during an open school day.

In the winter months, we have blue and white for winter. Green and pink then come around for spring. Summer gives us the yellow and red combo. Lastly, as you can guess, the vivid autumn trees this October are already signs that we will be getting an orange and purple mix for the fall.

The dusty gravel trail is filled with fresh fiery-colored leaves tattering the ground. Street lights with incandescent lights complimented the sky’s faint cotton candy tinge as it was approaching the evening. The air had lifted a soft breeze around but, wearing my tan cardigan sweater on top of my uniform wasn’t a bad choice on this particular day.

Once I finally reached the long benches (which were symmetrically facing one another next to the park’s fences in a specific pattern) I noticed how deserted it was when I was arriving here. The only thing I saw was a girl sitting three benches down from where I was walking. She had auburn hair with a fine curved bob hairstyle. Her lime key eyes sparkled behind a pair of red glasses. It seemed she was one of those people who wore their uniform outside after school.

“Hi… Cherry Brooks, right?” I asked while approaching where she was seated.

She stood up more quickly than I expected her to as soon as I arrived.

“I am. Follow me. I know a place we can sit at that will allow us to talk privately.”

Cherry led me underneath a very long bridge. It was pretty wide enough too, but the special thing about it was the fact that it was disguised as one. In actuality this place was a landmarked building called “The Orchid Overpass”. It was like a field house hiding as a bridge. There was a slightly rusted door on the left side which looked vacant. When we opened the door, there was a field house registration manager sitting behind a white desk in a very stylized futuristic lobby who greeted us kindly. Cherry was able to get us an available quiet room which I didn’t even know existed. She came here often to make appointments in which we could stay in there privately for up to 2 hours depending on the reservation we made.

Once inside the quiet room, you begin to notice how silent it really is. You could talk and all you felt was an echo within the room, even though there was a whiteboard for markers, two tables, and four comfy armchairs waiting inside. It was a pretty large room too.

I followed behind her, eventually sitting down in front of her. I was quite nervous about what to expect.

“Okay. Let’s talk the topic,” said Cherry as she sat down in one of the arm chairs while folding her legs and opening her black backpack which had images with these white outlines of cherries decorating it.

Then I saw what she pulled out. My mind almost immediately began to question what I was seeing.

It was a Princess Candiere plushie.