* LITERAL SUNSHINE !

Turning to see Faye, she sighed and re-lit her joint and shrugged. “Now, don’t be gettin’ me wrong or anything. I love all of them but the screams definitely don’t help the nerves. Plus, I don’t believe in modern medicine. They just need to make it legal like in Colorado.” She chuckled as she took the folders and shuffled through the names. “Yeah, that’s all of them. Sort of a late day at the clinic, ain’t it?”

“It’s enough to make me miss New York” she muttered. Not that she could go back there, not now. There was too many memories there for her. “People forget how important fluids are. Seem to spend my life drinking water, but better then anything else really” and she supposed now that was just going to result in her needing to pee even more. Oh she didn’t want this, but she didn’t know what else to do at this stage. “Used to come here on holidays. But only lived here about a month or so”.

Since arriving in town, Drew had tried to lay low, and tried to get a feel for the place. She had always loved books growing up, a sort of guilty pleasure for her, so spending hours in the bookstore was an exciting adventure. Drew had meandered down all the aisles starting from the front, her eyes scanning over all the books, plucking those that interested her to find out more. She had been so focused on the titles that she didn’t notice the other girl, “Sorry!” she laughed, before also pulling her hand back, “Yeah, they are pretty good. I like trying to guess what will happen next, makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes a bit I think.”

Noah hadn’t really left the house in days, other than to go to work or to pick up some supplies from the local convenience store. He had been avoiding people as much as he could, hating consistently having to reiterate the story of his wife, although he was well aware that the town already knew. Apparently, they just wanted to hear it in his words. Today, however, he had found himself in the local bookstore, having dropped off all of Devon’s books as a donation to the store. He had then found himself wandering around the store, reminiscing on all the times he’d spent in here trying to pick out books that his wife would have liked - and he only noticed that there was another person there when they both reached for the same book at the same time. “It was my late wife’s favourite…” He replied, the words slipping out before he could think to stop them, “Uh, sorry… It’s a really great book, though.”

Jessica always looked at books very lovingly. They had been there for her during the years — they were one of the sources of most songs she had written on her little notebook, they were there when she was happy, sad, angry, or when everything was so complicated she didn’t understand a thing that was happening. They were there. One of her best friends growing up was the former librarian, who always gave her the most exciting titles that had freshly been donated to the library, until she finally had money to start a little bit of a library to herself, which so far consisted of a shelf in her apartment that was being slowly added on. It justified her presence in the bookstore and it definitely justified her hand preparing to snag the book she had been wanting the most, it was on the most read list of the New York’s time. Every once in a while she liked to discover small jewels among old books, but well-reviewed books were a must. Someone else was after the same book, which made her pull back as well and smile at the red headed. “Those are amazing, I could not agree more. You can have it–” she pointed to the book, especially as she was already piling about five other books in her arms. “Just you’ll have to kind of bond with me, because I’ll need to know if it’s any good, or not.”

As the redhead grabbed the exact same book he had been eyeing, he shot her a quick smile as she turned her head towards him, letting her know that it was okay. James slowly raised his brows as she started to speak, she seemed to want to make some small talk. He softly hummed in agreement, “It’s one of my favorite genres, too.” He agreed with a nod. James didn’t read much, it wasn’t really on the top of his list of priorities. Though when he had some time off, or whenever he needed to do some research for a case, he would usually turn to books. “What made you choose that one?” James asked, as his eyes landed on the book they’d both taken interest in.

Freedom had never felt so sweet. Six long weeks in a hospital room were enough to drive anyone insane, and Kenzie was sure that she had gotten out just before the worst had overtaken her. She’d been discharged that morning, driven home and given an electric wheelchair to use until her wrist had healed enough to allow her to use her crutches, given the state of her leg. Thankfully, Raeford was a small place, and it was pretty easy to navigate around with the chair. Her heart ached a little at the thought of the twins remaining in the hospital for a few more weeks, but she knew it was in their best interests. On her first outing, however, she’d found herself in the local ice cream shop, sitting with an extra large banana split, with extra ice cream - an absolute indulgence, considering the hospital food she’d been living on for the past two weeks. So many familiar faces had passed her, offering glances of sympathy, which were difficult to reciprocate, but eventually she called out to one of them, “Hey– why don’t you come join me? I think I may have ordered way too much ice cream for one person, and I’ll absolutely share with ya if you share a story from the last three years with me.”

The last little backpack had left for the day, and the daycare sat silent for the evening. Birdie always stayed for a little while after the day ended to be sure everything was together for the next day and that the turtle wouldn’t die suddenly in the night. The window had been left cracked one night and she came in to find a very angry raccoon trying to carry him away, so she made sure that never happened again. After the markers had their lids returned and the broken crayons picked up out of the floor, she went out to the playground behind the building with her small bag she kept in the car and got her lighter and small joint out of the pocket. “Oh-oh shit.” she choked mid-drag as she heard some foot steps on the sidewalk behind her and she hurriedly put out flame and tried to fan away the smell with no use.

In reality, maybe running now wasn’t really the best idea. It was second nature to her though, a way to clear her head first thing in the morning. Or had been, now she didn’t seem to be able to escape any of the thoughts running through her head. Things were meant to be easier then this. But her brother wouldn’t talk to her, she wouldn’t talk to the rest of her family, and instead of admitting anything to anyone, she just ran. “Damn, this hot this early?” she muttered, stopping to try and catch her breath”.