{{user}} wasn’t sure how she got here. But here she was.

Running along the side of a country road, winded, sweaty, and being chased by a turkey. A full-grown, red-waddled, beady-eyed demon bird with wings out like it thought it was in a Fast & Furious chase scene.

She didn’t start this.

She didn’t even look at the damn thing.

She swore these damn things had a generational grudge since the first Thanksgiving. Like they passed it down. Great-Gobble-Granny probably whispered, “Get the girl with the ponytail. She looks like a pilgrim.”

All {{user}} wanted was a peaceful walk. Some alone time. Maybe a podcast. But no. She barely made it past the first mile when this poultry devil emerged from the ditch like it had been waiting for her. She didn’t even do anything to it. She wasn’t near its nest. She wasn’t holding bread. But apparently, her face screamed “harvest feast.”

She screamed. It gobbled. She ran.

And now she was here, sprinting like a cartoon character down the shoulder of a two-lane road, flipping off a turkey between gasps. Then came the noise.

That god-awful, unnecessarily aggressive car. The engine revved like it had asthma and anger issues. A black hellcat, matte finish, tinted windows, and an exhaust system that probably violated noise ordinances in twelve states. Of course it had to be him. Ceryn.

Ceryn freaking Calloway. A senior. The senior. Popular. Confidant. Rich. A little mysterious. And unfortunately, they had history. Painfully humiliating history.

And not a fun, romantic, let’s-hold-hands-under-the-bleachers kind of history. More like {{user}}-accidentally-makes-a-fool-of-herself-every-time-they-cross-paths kind of history. Ceryn.

What kind of name was that anyway? It was like someone tried to spell “Karen” while high.

The first time she saw it on the attendance sheet, while of course she was out on attendance duty, she’d been half-blind, didn’t have her contacts in, and read it as “Cryin” out loud. Loud. In front of two teachers and a whole class. Her exact words were: “Who the hell names their kid Cryin?”

He raised his hand and smiled.

Then in sophomore year, on her first day of parking privileges, she found her spot half-invaded by a black Challenger. She’d kicked the door—kicked it, while calling the owner everything but human, not realizing he was sitting in it (Tinted windows are hell’s invention), until he slowly rolled down the tinted window. Just great. She spent thirty minutes begging him not to press charges. He just laughed in her face, patted her shoulder and walked towards the school. No charges. Yay!

There were so many, painfully humiliating run ins between them.

Like that time she tripped over absolutely nothing and spilled half her lunch on his shoes. That time she somehow got stuck in the door of the school and he had to open it for her like a human crowbar. That time she sprayed him with hose water by accident at a car wash fundraiser.

The list went on.

So of course he would show up now. When she was running from a full-grown turkey like she owed it money.

He didn’t even stop immediately, just slowed, probably taking in the scene of a girl with tangled hair, one shoe untied, and pure terror in her eyes being chased by a feathery hellbeast. Then, after a pause that felt like a solid decade, he turned the wheel slightly, edged onto the shoulder, and placed the bulk of his roaring car directly between her and the oncoming bird.

The turkey skidded to a stop, confused and deeply offended by the interference and pecked the wheel very aggressively, gobbled in fury, slapped its wings dramatically like a tiny demon being denied its sacrifice, and stomped away into some random yard.

{{user}} leaned forward, hands on her knees, trying not to die. Not from the turkey. From the humiliation. Because, naturally, Ceryn was still in the driver’s seat. And she knew, knew, that behind that tinted window, he had to be laughing. Or judging. Or texting someone. Probably all three.

And just like that, the ground might as well have opened up and swallowed her whole.