The Life and Times of a Reluctant Love Interest

## Chapter 1:The Mysterious Boy that Fell From the Sky

It was a cool autumn day as Amanda and her two best friends, Henry and Lucy, walked to their homes together, with Amanda and Lucy currently listening to Henry talking about how he had defeated the final boss in one of his video games. Amanda's karate lesson had been postponed for the day, so she got out of school at the same time Henry and Lucy did.

"So, I charge up my brass knuckles and go WHAM! BAM! POW!!" Henry said, punching the air wildly. "Then, for the finishing move, I activate all of the previous bombs that I had already set up and make them all explode underneath the boss' feet!"

"Awesome!" Amanda said, smiling brightly while Lucy just nodded and smiled. "So, what was the ending like?"

"Oh, the ending was super cool as well!!" Henry gushed, his eyes lighting up even more. "After I defeated the boss, all of the spirits that the boss had captured in order to achieve his final form came out of his gauntlets, and then they restored the entire game world and everything that was in it!"

"That *does* sound super cool!" Amanda exclaimed. "I just wish that I could have that game as well!"

"I could let you borrow it!" Henry said.

"That would be *awesome,* thanks!" Amanda said, starting to imagine playing the game that Henry was just talking about.

Henry was about to say "no problem" or something along those lines when he suddenly saw something falling from the sky.

"Holy schnickeys!!" He exclaimed with wide eyes, looking directly at the thing now. "Is that- is that an alien!?"

Amanda squinted at the thing.

"I don't think that that's an alien..." She said. "I think that it's a boy!"

"An alien boy!?" Henry exclaimed, already coming up with wild theories.

"Um, guys," Lucy spoke up fearfully. "I think the boy is picking up momentum, and he's also falling where we're at right now!!"

The boy was, indeed, picking up momentum, with fire catching on his clothes and skin as he did.

"OH, SHOOT!" Henry cried, running the other direction in order to avoid being around the boy's impact. Amanda and Lucy followed, with Lucy screaming in fear and Amanda just having her eyes wide.

Eventually, the boy landed at the area the trio of friends were at, colliding with the sidewalk and causing a small explosion of fire to erupt around him in the process.

Meanwhile, the trio of friends were standing there in relative safety and gawking at the boy, who was bleeding out the back of his head and seemed to have minor burns and injuries besides that, but who also just looked to be unconscious and not dead. It was hard to tell for the trio of friends since they were far away from him, though.

After a little bit, Amanda raced to the boy in order to see if he was indeed unconscious and not dead. To her amazement, he was, and he had a decent pulse.

He still needed to be taken care of, though.

"Lucy, Henry!" She shouted at her friends, looking at them. "I need you to get an ambulance right now! Tell them that there's a boy out here who needs desperate medical attention this instant!"

Lucy nodded and whipped out her phone while Amanda was saying that, soon calling the hospital shortly after she did.

Minutes later, an ambulance arrived and picked the boy up, leaving the trio of friends with many questions.

Who was that boy?

How was he unconscious and not dead?

Was he an alien?

...Okay, so that question was just in Henry's mind, but you get the gist of things now, right?

## Chapter 2:Empty Praise

A week later, Amanda was heading through the school doors when she overheard a group of girls talking about a guy named Cedric inside.

"Oh, Cedric is just so *dreamy!"* A girl exclaimed.

"I know, right?" Another girl said. "He always knows what to say in order to capture my heart, and have you seen how *gorgeous* he is? He's more gorgeous than a model!"

*"Who's Cedric?"* Amanda thought, going past the swooning girls. *"Is he someone famous or something?"*

"Cedric is *so* cool!" A boy said to his group of friends that Amanda would soon pass by. "He's super coordinated and chill, and he always wins at the games he plays!"

"I know, right?" Another boy in the group said. "He should totally join our football team! If he did, we would *never* lose!"

"Cedric is such a great student," A teacher that Amanda passed by said. "He'll go on to do great things in the future, I just know it!"

"Agreed," Another teacher said. "He's already making great progress."

*"Isn't it just the beginning of the year?"* Amanda thought. *"How can you judge a student at all by just his initial efforts?"*

Eventually, Amanda turned a corner and found Henry and Lucy, who were also talking about Cedric.

*"Okay, that's it,"* Amanda thought. *"Who is Cedric, and why is everyone acting like he hung the moon?"*

"Who's Cedric?" Amanda asked out loud to Henry and Lucy.

"He's only the new student at our high school!" Henry said.

"He's also the sweetest, funniest, most *spectacular* guy I've ever met!" Lucy exclaimed, giggling and blushing.

Amanda blinked.

"I thought you weren't interested in guys," She said to Lucy.

"Well, I am now!" Lucy said, giggling again.

"...Do you know where Cedric *is?"* Amanda said, wanting to get to the bottom of things and also wondering about Lucy's strange behavior.

"Yeah, he's right around the corner, figuring out his locker!" Henry said, grinning broadly. "That's where we met him!"

"Thanks!" Amanda said, then ran around the corner...

...Only to see the boy she'd help put into the ambulance a week ago, and oh boy, was he *charming!*

His hair was the color of the shining sun, and about as fluffy as a cloud on a sunny day. His physique was strong and supple, and his charm was ever present, despite him not even talking to Amanda at all at this point.

Amanda felt herself falling in love with this boy immediately, and probably would've tried to talk to him if he hadn't seen her first.

"Why, hello there," The boy said, trying to sound charming but instead sounding *very* arrogant. "I see that I have a new admirer. Good. You may call me Cedric, and I expect you to worship me at any opportunity, like the pitiable little fool you are."

*...What.*

*This* was the boy she'd fallen in love with? *This* was the boy who everyone's been praising to death??

Everyone(including *her,* until now) was wrapped around the finger of this self-absorbed prick who sounded almost *comical* while talking? *Really??*

"Um, I'm sorry, but I have better things to do than worship a guy like you," Amanda said to Cedric, ready to walk away from him and ask her friends why they liked him so much.

She didn't notice Cedric's eyes growing wide in surprise, but she did freeze when she heard Cedric laugh.

"Do you know who I am?" Cedric said to her. "I'm Cedric, the talk of the school. *Everyone* loves me!"

"Oh, I definitely know who you are," Amanda said, promptly spinning on her heels to look Cedric point blank in the eyes. "Doesn't make you any less of a self-absorbed jerk, though. Look, I don't know *what* everyone's on to love you this much, but I certainly don't love you. In fact, I'm frankly disgusted by you and your attitude. Do me a favor and grow up, would you?"

Amanda then spun on her heels again and walked away from Cedric, leaving Cedric to gawk at her retreating form.

How was this possible? No one had *ever* resisted his charm before! Why-

Cedric thought for a moment.

"...She must have a strong spirit," He concluded. "Like, a *really* strong one."

Slowly, Cedric found himself start to appreciate this girl. Not only did she not fall under his spell, but she was also assertive *and* felt comfortable with stating her honest opinion of Cedric? He'd never met a girl like *that* before, and thinking about her just made her more and more appealing to him.

"She would make a good bride," He mused. "I'm sure that I could make her mine with some persistence."

Cedric's thoughts got interrupted when the bell rang, and while he was finishing up with his locker and rushing to his first class, he couldn't stop thinking about the assertive redhead who had stood up to him and how to win her heart.