location: some place in the corn maze, fall festival
status: closed thread for @marblegraced
He shoves his gloveless hands inside his coat pockets, tired eyes loking around as he questions his every decision that led him to that exact moment. Alexander recalls telling a friend from work how much he loves festivals and how excited he is for the one they had been setting up all week in his street, how the food and the rides make him smile wide; ghosts of some past memories creeping in and settling in his stomach making him feel almost at home. He recalls everyone in the kitchen chiming in and planning to go after work, how excited he had been and making plans to even receive them at his home later in the night for a beer and dinner as he often did whenever someone had something to celebrate. The chef remembers arriving and spending a lovely night with his friends, eating enough fried dough to worry his nutritionist and even getting on some of the rides. There's a vague recollection of Amy, a line cook, mentioning the corn maze and asking a few times if someone would do it with her only to be met with silence on multiple occasions before dragging Alexander along with a dishwasher with her.
He watches as the other two, lost in their own little world walk a few steps ahead of him for a few minutes, lips curled up into a smile as Amy turns around to check on him, eyes wide and sparkling. He brings a finger to his own lips and encourages her to continue before taking an intentional turn to give the two of them some space, pausing to give them enough of an advantage to lose them as he checks his phone flooded with texts from his social media manager begging him to get on some crazy internet trend he is too tired to understand.
As he returns to the right path, the cold October air hits his face at the same exact time he feels his body collide with another, clumsily making him drop his cellphone to the floor. "Shit, sorry!" he apologizes instantly, voice filled with honesty as he kneels down to pick his electronic device "There's a reason you shouldn't be corn-mazin' and texting" he tries to jest, grabbing the phone and finally looking up to the other person and suddenly all air leaves his lungs.
Truth be told Alexander is not great with faces. Multiple times a week clients come to greet him on his way to the market, telling him how happy they are to see him and how much they enjoyed the event he catered for them or that one dinner in the restaurant he works at and he simply smiles brightly and bows his head bashfully. New York, being the beast it is, full of personalities, egos and faces, have not helped his problem but he still tries his best. Yet, there are faces that stay with us, that we commit to memory we could recite each beauty mark in our sleep, even decades after seeing them face to face for the last time. That is Odessa Montague for Alexander Warren, who now stands in front of him for the first time in what feels like a lifetime; miles and miles away from their hometown in a corn maze in the middle of the street he lives in. He blinks rapidly, wondering for a second if this is a mirage of some sorts, a knot in his stomach tensing up.
"Izzy?"
