In the past couple of days, a heavy sense of restlessness had settled upon Willow's shoulders causing her to be out of sorts. She was burning a lot of things more often than usual lately to the point where her house mates were banning her from the kitchen for a while. Nothing could explain the reasons or cause of the mood which only caused frustration on top of everything else. There was only hope the feeling will go away soon or she was going to do something drastic to hope if that would lift the weight some. What the consequences be would be anybody's guess.
On the whim of something to do, Willow changed into a pale purple long sleeved shirt underneath the waterproof fisherman's overalls in order to make herself dressed for the occasion. She made her way to the park with her bag of equipment to collect samples and other unique things she may come to find. Her blonde hair split into two pigtails, one over each shoulder, making her look much younger than her usually mistaken high school baby face.
That afternoon, Willow was thigh high deep in the lake slowly wadding through the waters following a school of tadpoles until she spotted a fungi she hadn't spotted before on the base of a tree by the banks. Slowly crawling up to be eye level to the fungus, she had dug out her magnifying glass from her bag to take a closer inspection. Her latex gloves covered hands tentatively poked at the greenish fungus. No reaction, as expected, which was a little disappoint but she still placing it on a glass slide and then into a test tube with a cork stopper in place to be analyzed later.
The tiny little hairs on the back of her neck started to stand up as if the internal warning bells were sounding off indicating there is someone or something in presence. Glancing around peering closely at figures in between surrounding tall trees, Willow spotted a tall solid build man in a sweater that seemed to be second skin on him and jeans that were so fitting, there was barely anything left to the imagination. Her sights returned to the man's face with curiosity. While covered in large sunglasses, she knew that dimpled chin and chiseled jaw anywhere. She had stared at it at very close range for long enough that fateful day at Deja Brew.
"Oh my gosh! Hey! Cole!" Her hand shot high into the air waving it around like a soundless homing beacon to get his attention. "Hey!" In her flurry of excitement seeing the man that had been pleasantly haunting her night and day dreams since the day they had met, she scrambled up onto the banks on all hands and knees. On the last step that brought up her to grass, her boot stepped onto a wet patch of weeds as she straightened herself up on the vertical. Feeling her body leaning backwards, she yelped as her arms started flailing everywhere grasping onto air and her other foot kicked off from the edge of the banks.
Splash!
She landed into the lake only to come out spluttering and super embarrassed with her face burning the color of beetroot red. Maybe he didn't see that, she thought with tiny hope, and quickly made her second attempt to climb out of the lake. This time, she continued to stay on all fours until she was on solid dry ground again. Standing up dripping and sopping wet from head to toes, water rushed out from every sleeve and opening of clothing possible. Ewww, she cringed shaking one leg to kick off any more excess water hating the feel of wet socks inside boots.