Standing Still

Chapter 14: The Prospect of a First Date is not so Far-Fetched After All

(This isn't even proofread. *gasp* Who am I becoming?!)

My thoughts were interrupted by a poke on the shoulder.

"Sorry," Bridget said in her mousy little voice, adjusting the frame of her glasses. "I've just been standing here for a while."

"Oh," I said, shooting her an apologetic look. "Sorry, I thought you were looking over the display case." She handed me the books tucked inside her elbow, and I rang them up. Technically, if she wanted me to know she was waiting, the books should've been on the counter.

"I was. I'm not good with eye contact."

I looked at her for a few seconds. "Okay. Sorry, again." She nodded at this, and I told her the total cost of her purchase. She paid me in cash, digging a few dimes and pennies from her polka-dot covered wallet, and she said she didn't need a bag. When the transaction was all done and over with, she didn't leave.

She would come in to the store promptly at three-forty-five every Thursday and Friday when I was working, she would read her most recent purchases until she finished, and then she would buy a few more. She always sat in the plush, maroon chair in the corner of the room, her legs huddled to her chest. She would stay until it was closing time, hardly uttering a word, and sometimes I even forgot she was there.

Now, she walked over to her chair and gently seated herself. This was her corner, and the opposite one, the little nook between the two bookshelves, was mine. We had our established places, and the only times we spoke was when I told her how much her books were going to cost her; until today, when she said, "I think I might enter that." Her finger was pointed to the poster Roy had hanging up on the front door, the one about the writing competition.

"Oh," I said, nodding my head as I made my way out from behind the front counter. "Um, yeah, you should."

"The prize is a hundred dollars."

"I know."

"You should enter it too."

I raised my head. "Maybe I'm not a writer."

"You're always writing in that mulberry notebook."

I raised my eyebrows, sliding The Catcher in the Rye out of its place in the bookshelf in front of me.

"It's a shade of purple," she elaborated, and I said, "I figured."

After that, she was done talking. She went back to her book, flipping it open and moving her lips as she read. I let out a tired breath, placing the rest of the books in the cart into their allotted places on the shelves. It'd been a long day, and when I had nothing to do my mind wandered to unfortunate places. Mackenzie still hated me. I hadn't tried to talk to her yet, but she hadn't tried to talk to me either, so it was pretty obvious.

Today I had the day off of school because of some teacher conference. So, naturally, my father invited Sam and I over for a 'family bonding lunch'. Sam didn't go. He barely spoke to me - with the exception of the apology mom forced him to give - but he certainly made sure to say he refused to go to lunch.

"So... Anna," he began, Tuesday morning after I'd come out of the bathroom and down the stairs for breakfast. My mother was sipping a cup of coffee, reading the paper before she would have to head off for work, and she miraculously realized she'd forgotten to put on earrings and rushed out of the room to do so. He swallowed. "I'm, uh... sorry for yesterday. I'm your younger brother and I should respect you-" he blew out a puff of breath, shutting his eyes in embarrassment, "-and I promise I will try harder to not be so impulsive and immature. I was being a... a, um..."