Small Town Sumner's

Chapter Three: Midnight Talks

~Arien~

After Layla agreed, mom and dad had assumed I'd just follow suit which they weren't wrong about. Since we got the main topic settled, Mom decided to change the subject which worked out well for us, most of the talking was being done by Layla, the topic was about school and the highlights were all about Layla, I'd had probably had some, but they were mostly just about how the lunch wasn't as bad as last year.

There wasn't much to highlight, the one runner up only brought a stinging sensation to my eyes causing them to water a bit, the only person who had something great happen to them that seemed to stay consistent was Layla, not me, anything that seemed close to being something that was even great for me turned out to be a complete farce, myself pity party was starting a little early today, and I couldn't let that happen, I needed to snap out of it, but how? It hurts so much-

"Arien sweetie, what about you?" Mom pulls me back to reality

"Hmm? What about me?" I realized too late that I was lost in thought and not paying attention anymore to the conversation. Now I needed to play catch up to figure out what to say to my mom, thankfully Layla mouths me what I missed out on, but that just confuses me more.

"What were the highlights of this school year for you?" Mom repeats the question from before.

"Oh right, um nothing much, it wasn't the best school year but I'd say the end was worth it." I wasn't lying, I meant it, it was worth it, I got my sister back, well that was until I'd quickly reminded myself of how she'd been a petty betty to me earlier, I knew she didn't mean it, but still that was low, way low.

Even so I pushed the thought to the side, smiling and nodding in her direction where she sat on the other side of the massive couch, to which on queue she giggled nodding in agreement.

The rest of the conversation pretty much consisted of Layla and Mom laughing, carrying on the conversation while I sat by once in a while chiming in.

My smile was getting heavy and Dad seemed to catch onto to that, his brows furrowing together along with a 'what's wrong?' pout.

I knew what he was gonna say, and I was really hoping it'd never come to this and he'd just continue listening to the two share bears on the right.

Rejected.

My Wish was rejected.

Dad began to ask, " Sweetie-"

"Dad! Mom!" Lars yells practically throwing his whole body on the two.

I let out a deep breath starting to relax.

Thanks to Lars.

🌸 🌸 🌸 🌸

The breeze from the window felt nice tonight, especially since I was lying down, listening to some Day6 for relaxation, from my angle where I was laying on the floor stars looked dimmed from the city lights shining on it.

Even through the artificial light, you can still see just how beautiful the lights are, I learned that bit from Gramps when I was little.

He'd sometimes let me go with him on his late night drives listening to oldies. His gray hair glowed in the night, skin still blessed from past years of working in the field, wearing his straw hat, sunglasses hanging from the pocket of his plain old white t-shirt having the smell of the soil, gramps spent his whole childhood farming, even up to adulthood, until he met Grandma Lily, farmer boy fell in love with the librarians daughter.

Gramps had bought the shop soon after, he'd had a talent for messing with cars since he was a teen and felt like he'd make a good buck out of it, and Granny lily wanted to give her abundance of books away; So together they created "Kane's Auto & Book's" it was Baldwin's first and only at the time auto shop and bookstore, the couple was happy, but gramps was still feeling as if he'd been missing a part of him.