Page 3 of Red Flag, Green Light

I bake it. Frequently. There is no food more perfect. I grow the carrots fresh in a modest garden out back beside my trampoline spring through fall. Ido notadd raisins. Addingraisins is truly illegal. Wake up, sheeple. You thinkhome securityis illegal? Don’t be ridiculous. It’sraisins. Always has been. Always will be. Get over it.

Hobby three…Ceres.

Ceres Dew Drop. Twenty-six years of age, soon to be twenty-seven. Birthday: March 22nd. Lover of words and staying indoors.

My angel of a neighbor with brilliant red waves.

The precious, mild-mannered, cottagecore creature moved in next door but a few years ago, and I’ve been hooked on her ever since my eyes met hers.

Insanity knows insanity.

It has a scent.

The first time that woman saw me and pushed back the flower-scattered waterfall of her hair, shesmiled. She smiled, and I lost whatever remained of my mind as the saccharine aroma clogged my senses.

You see, me being cracked off my rocker isn’tnew. I have always been wildly unstable, messed up,wrong. My eyes have always been an electric green that sparks when I get a terrible idea. They’ve always been a little too wide, just like my smile, and it helps no one that my canines are ever so slightly fanged. When Ismile, the points show, and people shudder.

Wild dark hair, wilder eyes. I’ve been called an animal and a hazard just about as long as I can remember. Based on my appearance and general aura alone, I’ve been avoided and outcast my entire life.

I am not the sort of person pretty women in flowing garments smile oh-so-casually at.

Even without the rumors of my checkered past poisoning the mind of a new resident in town, I am a walkingRougeflag at first glance.

I know this for a fact.

Add in how I was practicing throwing cards into an apple upon my brother’s head that day. And…well…Ceres knew. Ceres knew not to explicitly lock eyes with me and smile as warmly and sweetly as she did.

Was sheaskingto become my impaired brain’s favorite hobby?

Let’s not go that far.

It is, after all, easier to assume statistically-charged opinions in large-scale pools where data is more readily available asaveragesand notrules. I can easily make educated guesses concerning how a group will veer based on past demographic data. I don’t get access to the same information for individuals, so making suppositions concerning their behavior trends is something that takes far more time and observation.

Hence the observation.

And after three years of careful observation, this is some of what I’ve learned:

Ceres Dew Drop, my enchanting flower, my enrapturing orchid, the darling of my bleeding heart, my beloved little goddess and delicate rose…does not do much. She gardens. She reads. She works online. Until recently, I didn’t know her job since her computer screen is irritatingly directed away from my cameras…but I did know that she doesn’t have a career in town. Because she does not gointotown more than once a month. For groceries.

She stocks up, like a squirrel in winter, and leaves her house a thrilling maximum of fifteen times a year. In direct contrast, she appears to order new books every three days. Once, I charted a stint where she had new books coming to her front door every day for seventeen days straight.

Ialmostwent over at around day fourteen to ask if everything was all right. But. Well.

It’s easier to love someone from afar when you’ve yet tocalculate the chance of heart-breaking rejection, isn’t it?

I might be a maniac, but I really am just like other boys.

Wait, no. I’m pretty sure that, actually, the unknown frightens everyone, not justother boys.

And maybe, just maybe…that’s why Ceres also prefers to stay inside.

Coercion is wrong.

Blackmail is illegal.

Setting my card down, I put my attention on my third monitor and drop the tab with the camera footage showing Ceres’s plant-filled yard to bring up the chat with Rouge’s proofreader, Sara Pond.

Three messages. That’s all it took to change my life forever.

---