Those Worse Off Than You

I had a bit of trouble convincing my mother to let us out. I told her I was just going to walk Ace home, so she wouldn't be worried. She insisted that she give him a ride. After pointless minutes, Ace and I were able to walk out the front door and down the street.

I pulled my jacket in closer to my body. It was a warm evening, but the wind was beginning to blow. It seemed as if Ace and I were walking aimlessly for hours, even though it hadn't even been one when we came to a small park.

"Okay, I'm sitting down," I stated and sat down in the middle of a grass field.

Ace sat in front of me and looked across the field at the small children leaving the park with their parents. I wondered what he was thinking. Was he thinking about the home that those children were going home to? Or how they wined and had to be pried from the swings.

I smiled and watched as a few drove by.

"Stay like that- don't move," Ace ordered.

I froze and heard scrambling of papers and from the corner of my eye, I saw as he took out his sketchpad and flipped to a blank page.

"Oh- common Ace. No," I complained and turned red from embarrassment.

"Why not? Just stay still, it won't take long."

I laughed in my head over the next thirty minutes and kept playing that sentence in my head as time grew on and on and my fingers, ears and cheeks became numb from the harsh cold wind.

The sun had set and my mother would become worried soon... she thought I would have been home by now.

"There, it's done," Ace announced and held up the sketchpad.

I had to squint to see it, since it was dark. Once the lines came into focus, I blushed. "It's amazing."

He looked at it, "It looks just like you. See how beautiful you are."

"Stop it," I remarked with a smile.

"Stop what?"

"That."

"Okay... I'll stop whatever I'm doing. We should get going anyways, it's getting dark, and your mom is going to have a fit."

I nodded and got up, following him across the field to the sidewalk as we walked back down the street.