Alora Jones; a shy, 20-year-old who has spent all of her life struggling with her weight. It doesn't help that the main cause of that is because of her parents. Growing up with constant negativity and hurtful words being thrown at her by the two tha...
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July 18th, 2023
Harry
I could feel the sun shining on my face, acting as nature's alarm clock. I grab my phone to check the time, seeing it's 6:30 in the morning. I have about two hours until I have to open the bookstore so I pull myself out of bed and make my way to the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. As the coffee is brewing I head over to my record player and straight away reach for my favorite album; Hotel California by The Eagles, who also happen to be one of my favorite artists.
As the first few notes of Life in the Fast Lane ring through my ears, I dance my way back over to the kitchen and pour myself a cup of the coffee, walk over to my desk, and place the cup down before heading over to my library. I run my finger along the spines of the books before I get to the one I want; 'The Song of Achilles.' I pull out the book from its place on my bookshelf and walk back to my desk. Opening the book up to the certain page I had bookmarked, I set the book down to grab some of the fresh flowers from the bouquet that was lying on my desk that I had picked the day before at the local farmers market. The pages I had bookmarked weren't random, I had them picked for a reason. I like matching scenes in books to flowers that I feel encapsulates the imagery. For this particular passage, I picked Marigolds. I like to take my time, and make sure the way I'm arranging the flowers is exactly how I want it to be. Grabbing some scissors, I go ahead and cut some of the ends of the stems if they're hanging over the edge. After lots of rearranging, I am finally happy with how they look. I go into the drawer of my desk and take a piece of parchment paper and carefully place it over the flowers, making sure I don't bump them out of place in any way. Before closing the book to press the flowers, I read over the page; something I tend to do whenever I'm laying new flowers.
"Had she really thought I would not know him? I could recognize him by the touch alone, by smell, I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world." I sigh heavily, shutting the book, longing for a love like that. Shaking my head to push the thought away, I make my way back over to my bookshelf, grabbing a random paperweight and placing it on top of the book with the flowers.
Glancing behind my shoulder at the clock I see that it's now eight in the morning. I've been working on my flowers for about an hour and a half. It didn't even feel that long. I get so lost in what I'm doing that time ceases to exist for me. Knowing I have about half an hour before meeting Maddie, (which is plenty of time for me to get ready), I'm not too worried if I end up running late because Maddie has the extra set of keys and can open the shop if she needs to.
Maddie is my best friend. Our moms have been best friends since high school, so it's no surprise that Maddie and I ended up being best friends. Which I'm totally okay with because we're pretty much each other's only friends and we suck at meeting new people. It's like we were meant to be. Growing up, we would always spend our free time reading or listening to what our classmates called "old-person music", which it's not. We prefer the term classic. Is it such a bad thing that we love music that's not from our generation? I don't think so. Artists like the Eagles, the Beatles, and Bruce Springsteen are always on repeat when we're together, and even when we're alone.
