Welcome to our new 🍂Fall Fiction Fill-In Series🍂 where we invite you to finish the endings of our stories and poems. So, come join us and have fun because…
It’s your turn to….
Write. Imagine. Continue….
Today’s story is:
Fall For You
By Tannika Nikeya
Jemma Janae quickly grabbed her long bath towel and closed the lid of the towel warmer. She didn’t want to lose the warmth and coziness of the towel. She dried herself off from her hair to in between her toes, then threw the towel into the dirty towel bin. She smoothed on shea butter lotion, slid her favorite burnt-orange, feathery sweater over her head, and put on her favorite boot-cut blue jeans. She slicked her hair back into a ponytail with a little leave-in conditioner and edge control. But before she proceeded to the kitchen, she paused to take a deep breath, closed her eyes, and slowly exhaled.
She had started a new practice of slowing down.
She opened her eyes slowly and glanced at her prayer board, where all of her neatly written scriptures were displayed. She read a few out loud and then closed her eyes again.
“God,” she said, “it says Your peace surpasses all understanding. I need peace today. And I need Your help with this house and my next steps in life. Whew, too much. Help a sister out. In Jesus’ name, amen.”
She was embarking on a new journey—living alone for the first time, building a career, and caring for a house that needed so much of her time, all without her beloved parents, who had passed away back-to-back two years ago. She had not dated in years. Her last relationship had ended with a returned ring and a heartbreak, but it had also catapulted her toward the beginning of a healing journey.
She opened her eyes and stood up, stretching her arms as high as they could go, turning to the left and then to the right as she heard slight creaks and pops.
She chuckled.
“Um-um, is this what thirty-five sounds like?”
Her mother had always told her to stretch daily and that her body would thank her later as she got older.
She glanced at her phone, grabbed it, and bounced down the stairs to the kitchen. She placed her phone on the kitchen counter, clicked on the red app, as her nephew called it, and typed in Sade. She selected “The Sweetest Taboo.” It was her mother’s favorite song and now hers, too.
It was the perfect song for a warm day with a gentle breeze—a day full of orange, red, yellow, and barely-green leaves.
Jemma Janae began to dance slowly to Sade’s silky-smooth voice, putting one leg and foot forward at a time, stepping like she had seen her parents do when listening to old jams.
Filled with worn wooden cabinets and dingy lavender floral wallpaper, the kitchen was outdated. She imagined it had once belonged to a loving grandmother and had been filled with so many good meals. The scents of her kitchen not only greeted Jemma Janae but competed with one another, yet somehow remained pleasant. Lemon-scented floors and pumpkin spice candles filled the air and made her kitchen seem even more homey.
She walked to the fridge but then changed her mind. She ran upstairs, grabbed some socks, ran back down, slid on her brown boots, put on her brown faux-leather jacket, grabbed her small umbrella that she could just throw into her small backpack, and headed out the door with her backpack and camera.
As she stepped outside of her fifty-year-old house, a sour, unpleasant smell greeted her, completely different from the pumpkin spice and lemon scents that had filled her kitchen. Yet, ignoring the smell, she began walking down the street to the little coffee shop.
She glanced back at her old, quaint home. She was so grateful to have purchased her own house, and no matter how long it took, she promised to revive it again.
She had saved up for the down payment and worked with her real estate agent to find a foreclosure, the fixer-upper kind, because she couldn’t afford those pricey homes.
She was grateful, but she pursed her lips and remembered that this home needed more than a little updating and remodeling. She had some plumbing issues, and sometime soon, she would have to get a new roof.
“Watch YouTube videos, they say,” she thought.
She had tried watching the red app to DIY her own repairs and remodeling, but it was an epic fail every time.
Capturing the red cardinal sitting on a branch, singing away, with my camera? I got you.
But fixing a toilet? Nope.
Putting together an ad or marketing campaign? I got you.
“But doing all of these DIY house repairs? I suck,” she admitted to herself.
So, her mission was to find some affordable contractors—ones who wouldn’t charge her an arm and a leg and just because she was a single woman.
She ordered her iced mocha and apple-cranberry muffin and crossed the street to the park. Today, she had the day off, and she would get a chance to capture some nature shots.
Fall was the perfect season for nature to deliver its live poetry.
The rising sunsets, the changing colors of the leaves, and the squirrels and birds going about life as usual all gave her something to capture.
She normally didn’t take photos of people without their permission, but there was a couple here or a person there who didn’t mind. And that brought so many stories to her camera and photo albums.
One day, she fantasized, I would love to feature my work in a gallery. I am not getting any younger.
As she sat on the bench, sipping and savoring her favorite iced coffee and finishing her apple-cranberry muffin, her eyes traced the life around her.
A guy was instructing the others about their work as Jemma Janae lifted the camera resting against her chest, its strap looped around her neck. She glanced around, looking for the story and beauty she would capture that day.
A perky couple held hands and smiled at one another as they walked along the trail. A mom pushed her infant in one of those new, modern strollers while glancing down at him and flashing a big smile. A dad helped his toddler bravely tackle the slide. Two small birds flew playfully around and chirped happily. An elderly lady carefully walked her big, fluffy dog, who wanted to stop and smell everything. And a squirrel busily hid something in front of a big tree.
But what she didn’t notice was the team of guys wearing bright orange vests, huddled together with their coffee cups in their hands.
They had a little time before they started work on the street and the sewer below, right in between the park and the café.
No one had a clue—not even Jemma Janae.
She adjusted her camera lens and prepared to take a picture when suddenly, the same guy who had been instructing his team stepped into her lens.
He had his hard hat in one hand and his cup of coffee in the other.
And he was handsomely smiling straight through the lens of her camera.
She lowered the camera from her face, smirked, and gave her head a half-shake.
Hey Loves, now it’s your turn…
Write. Imagine. Continue….
the story!
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