#cwhqella

Seven years. It’d been a solid seven years since the last time August had spent more than three days in his own hometown. Not by any fault of his-- well, perhaps that was subjective depending on the day and who you asked. His avoidance of Castlewood could’ve been attributed to a number of things: an escape from his family drama, a method to wean himself off of the dependency he had on his childhood memories, a means of shutting out the heartbreak that still lived within city limits. But dissatisfaction with who he’d be come brought him crawling back to the only place his heart had called home. Though he tried to shed himself of the small town boy image and attempted to encapsulate everything about being a hot shot lawyer with a chip on his shoulder, he couldn’t bring himself to fully encompass what that entailed. So he left the bustling city of Boston and suddenly found himself falling back into his place in Castlewood.

Arriving at the diner, he drew in a deep breath and made his way to the door, exhaling as he pulled it open. It’d been a while since he’d last seen her. August wondered if her eyes still looked the same, if her voice still carried the same cadence he’d come to love. He ruminated over a number of things, unable to collect his thoughts as anticipation remained pent up in the pit of his stomach. Sliding into one of the booths, he folds his hands on the table, foot tapping frantically in a fanfare of staccato notes, unsure of what to expect. From his periphery, he spotted her from afar and felt his heart leap up into his throat.