Leather Bound ✓

seven | dark

seven | dark

     Amanda's Father would be okay though he would be out of commission for awhile, and that was all Easton reminded Amanda of when her eyes would stare at an object too long, dazed. He stayed super kind to her in the weeks her Father was at home, bed ridden, and he made sure he kept the bookstore running because that's what the old guy had pleaded of him. Besides, he thought, his little brother loved the extra time at Tommy's house anyway.

     In the time they spent with each other , though it was only around the shop and sometimes late at night when Easton walked her home because it was too dark out, they formed a bond like no other. Amanda, though shyly at first, had even opened up about her writing, and Easton had admitted that he had only started writing for contests where you could make money if you won them. It disappointed her that he didn't like the craft otherwise. Especially because she thought he was good at it, but she understood that not everyone was as privileged as she, no matter how in debt her small knit family that consisted of just her and her Dad were.

     Easton, no matter his complicated life, had dreamed of much simpler when he was younger. He liked building, necessarily construction, and he supposed it was a perfect hobby considering his need to help people, but he knew that if he could he'd become a peer guidance teacher at a high school or middle school because that's where the problems seemed to start. Amanda admired this, but couldn't say she wanted to deal with kids as her aspiration. She had actually wanted to be a lawyer, but joked that she didn't think her frizzy and curly hair would tolerate the professional buns and pulled back ponytails the black suited lawyers always seemed to be caught in. She also mentioned that she liked her skirts too much for that.

     In the mornings, Easton and Duke went over to Amanda's for breakfast on the weekends before they left for the bookshop and Duke to Tommy's house. Her Father would manage to hobble his way to the living room where he'd sit in his faded blue recliner, and he'd silently eat his own batch of homemade pancakes, all the while thinking that Easton was a good kid.

     In the afternoons they went to Clementine's, sipped their tea with their pinkies up, and colored in the obsession of Amanda's coloring book collection hidden in her oversized hippie purse made of scrap clothing. She feared getting stuck waiting on something or someone, bored, and that was the only reason why she kept so many. Easton, head laying thoughtfully on his folded arms laying on the table, would color over her images just as she would exclaim that it was nearly perfect, her crazy hair piled up on her head in a haphazard bun to keep her hair out of her face though loose tendrils fell gently around her face anyway.

     Laughing when she'd start complaining, a slight whine in her soft voice, Easton would start picking up their trash to throw away. They had already started to be associated with the secluded table away from the windows tucked in the corner, and Isabelle Payton waved goodbye as Easton held the door open for Amanda to walk out first. She was something else when she got focused on something, and Easton hated the way it made him feel inside.

     Biting her lip Amanda would opt to not mention his withdrawing demeanor when lunch was over, and politely thanked him for holding the door open for her as she walked out of Clementine's and into the beginnings of Winter.

     The bookstore was coming along farther than Amanda had expected it to when they first opened, but as soon as they flipped the sign over claiming that they were back from their lunch break and once again 'open,' people flooded in like crazy, and one older lady had even went out of her way to ask how Amanda's Father was doing. Amanda had of course immaturely thought that the woman was asking out of more than politeness, but Amanda already knew there was no other woman for her Dad besides her Mother. Nobody could ever replace the woman that had given birth to her.