Leather Bound ✓

eight | light

eight | light

     It was years later when the bookshop on the corner of Mayberry Street between the tea shop and the sweets shop on the left became a permanent fixture in the small town of Nincut. It was only in months that one loyal customer turned into many, and that only in months Easton Wilds said he'd be back. The bookshop owner and the bookshop owner's daughter waited anxiously, sitting in the backroom of their store with sweets and tea from their neighbor, Clementine's.

     It had been four years to be exact, and Easton would be twenty years old, but with each year, every Spring, both Father and Daughter made sure to close shop just a little later for the welcome home they hoped to give.

     The boy never came, however, and though it was upsetting, Amanda couldn't wait until she got home where a package would be waiting on her doorstep like every other time Easton failed to show his face. Inside would be a leather bound journal - each one different from the last he sent, filled with his life's story of where he was off to next, always moving, still hiding his mother from the law, still raising his little brother, and she read them all until the years passed and he still failed to show.

     Amanda didn't become a lawyer, and she never grew out of her obsession with hippy skirts. Even when her Father passed she refused to wear black and brush her hair, and at age thirty- five she ran Promises, the bookshop her Father had never gotten around to naming.

     It had been the perfect name even though those dimples of Easton's never lived up to their promises of ever returning to Mayberry Street, because even though Easton was long forgotten in the pages of his journals, someone else had promised themselves to return to Nincut to thank the very person that had helped him become more than his name suggested.

     Duke Wilds, at age twenty-two, ten years younger than Amanda, walked into Promises looking just as handsome as Easton had when he had first walked into the raggedy bookshop. The striking resemblance had Amanda launching herself into the younger boy's arms, but as soon as Duke hugged her back Amanda knew it wasn't the boy she had waited nearly her whole life for.

     "He's not coming back, Amanda," Duke murmured, hating himself for saying it.

     "I know," Amanda pulled away, wiping away the tears that had formed.

     "I came back to see Tommy and his Mom. I'm going back to college tomorrow, and I have them to thank for it," Duke explained, hands in his True Religion jeans.

     He had made something of himself despite his crack whore of a mother, and Amanda knew it was only because Easton had given up his dreams to take care of his little brother. That made him a good person, and she knew it did, but it also made him a coward. Duke was a grown adult now, in college, and yet where was Easton? Still playing in the jungle of the rough neighborhoods? Still taking care of that useless Mother of his?

     The bell of the door jingled, and both Amanda and Duke paused in their conversation to see who it was.

     Tommy with his unmistakable floppy hair and his gorgeous Mother at his side even at her age smiled when they saw Duke.

     "I should go," Duke turned back to Amanda. "It was nice to see you again," he hugged Amanda one last time, slipping something in her hands as he pulled away.

     The trio left and Amanda was left with a single paper in her hands. She almost threw it away- she was so angry at Easton. She just knew it was from him. But of course she unfolded it and read it anyway.

     I'm at Clementine's, if you're still mine -Easton Wilds

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