As The Seasons Change

Chapter Two 

The morning after James and Clara arrived, the house felt different.

It always did when James was home. Not worse, not better—just noisier, fuller. More alive. And more complicated.

Eli woke early, long before the others. He padded down the hallway careful not to disturb anyone. The floorboards creaked anyway, betraying him like they always did.

The kitchen was cold and quiet. He boiled water, made tea instead of coffee. He didn’t need the extra buzz. His mind was already humming, rewinding yesterday’s glances and unspoken moments like static on an old cassette tape.

He could still feel the weight of Clara’s eyes on him. Not judgmental. Not flirtatious. Just… knowing. Like she saw something she wasn’t supposed to, but didn’t look away.

He hated that James didn’t seem to notice.

Or maybe he did. James had always been better at pretending things didn’t bother him than Eli ever was.

The bookstore was slow that morning, as Saturdays often were in the fall—just locals browsing, sipping coffee from the café down the street, chatting about leaf color forecasts and the upcoming harvest fair.

Eli liked the quiet hum of it. He was reshelving used hardcovers in the back corner when he heard the doorbell jingle and a familiar voice called out.

“You still organizing your shelves by emotion instead of alphabet?”

He turned, eyebrows raised. “If I were, where would I put you?”

Grace Weller stood in the doorway, smirking beneath a navy-blue beanie. Her coat was unbuttoned, the cold flushed across her cheeks, and in her gloved hands she held a paper bag from the café across the street.

“Somewhere between grief and sarcasm,” she said, walking in.

He smiled—smiled the way he rarely did anymore.

Grace has been in his life for so long that he could barely remember a time when she wasn’t. She used to work part-time at the bookstore in high school, back when her curls were bigger and her shoes were covered in Sharpie-doodled band logos. Now, she works at the library in town. Still wore too much eyeliner. Still knew how to take the wind out of his overthinking with a single look.

“You’re early,” Eli said.

“I’m always early. You’re just always surprised by it.” She handed him the bag. “Apple muffins. Fresh. Don’t say I never do anything for you.”

He took them gratefully. “Thanks.”

She leaned on the edge of the counter and watched him. “So… your brother’s back.”

He stiffened slightly. “Yeah. Yesterday.”

“And Clara?”

He nodded.

Grace’s gaze didn’t waver. “You alright?”

That was the thing about Grace. She didn’t tiptoe. Didn’t pretend she didn’t know what she knew.

Eli opened the bag. The scent of cinnamon rose into the space between them. “I’m fine.”

“‘Fine’ is your least convincing lie,” she said, softer now. “You do this every time.”

“Do what?”

“Shrink.”

He didn’t answer.

Grace shifted her weight. “You ever gonna tell him?”

Eli stared at the muffin like it held the answer. “Tell him what? That I have feelings for his girlfriend? That sometimes when I hear her laugh, it physically hurts because it reminds me I’ll never be the one who makes her laugh like that?”

The words felt foreign and dangerous out loud.

Grace blinked, and to her credit, didn’t flinch. “You’ve never told her either, have you?”

“No. I wouldn’t.”

“She looks at you like she already knows.”

He sighed and leaned against the opposite wall, folding his arms. “That’s worse.”

They stood in silence for a moment. Thistle leapt off a bookshelf nearby and landed on the counter between them, stretching and yawning with pointed disregard for human conflict.

Grace scratched behind the cat’s ear. “You deserve love too, you know.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t.”

“But you think it.”

He glanced at her. “Don’t psychoanalyze me before 9 a.m.”

“I’m not. I’m just saying… maybe the story you’ve written for yourself isn’t the only one you get.”

That stayed with him long after Grace left.

Later that afternoon, Clara came into the shop alone.

She lingered in the poetry section, thumbing through an Adrienne Rich collection. She wore a different scarf today—light gray with stitched leaves along the ends. It looked like something someone’s grandmother would make. It made her look… real. Like home.

He watched her for a few moments, then busied himself at the register.

She came up ten minutes later with the book and a small journal.

“I didn’t know you had this in stock,” she said, placing the poetry down.

Eli took it and flipped it over, scanning the barcode. “We didn’t. Grace probably added it last week. She still updates the poetry shelf when she’s bored.”

“She’s good at that,” Clara said. “Being where she’s needed.”

He glanced at her, sensing a layer beneath the words. “She is.”

There was a pause, then Clara said, “James is out walking with your dad. I told them I wanted to stay behind.”

Eli looked up. She was watching him again—closely, but without demand.

“Needed quiet?” he asked.

“I think I needed clarity,” she replied softly.

The register beeped as he rang her up even though he wasn't making her pay. “Find any?”

“Some.”

Another pause. The air shifted. Her fingers tapped gently on the counter, and he noticed a small ink smudge on her thumb.

“I always feel… different here,” she said, almost to herself. “Like I can hear my own thoughts better.”

He nodded. “This place does that.”

She opened her mouth like she might say something more, then stopped.

He handed her the bag. Their fingers brushed. She didn’t pull away at first.

“Thank you,” she said, and left without another word.

That night, Eli wrote in his journal for the first time in months.

“She was standing in the same light that used to fall across my mother’s hair. That’s what I thought, looking at her. Not that she was beautiful—though she was—but that she was part of something already woven into my memory.

And maybe that’s the problem.

I’ve folded her into my narrative, without permission. Written her into the margins of my story like a footnote I was never supposed to read aloud.

I love her. And I can’t. And I won’t.

But I do.

And it’s killing me a little more each time.”

He closed the book.

Then he turned off the light.