palaces out of paragraphs ~ camila/you

chapter one

Just then, the door opened. I heard a pair of feet step in, the sound of water underneath squeaking underneath boots. I turned around, and was met with two big brown eyes.

It was a girl. Usually, we didn't quite get young visitors unless they were in a group of other college kids or something. But there she stood, wiping her boots on the doormat, all by herself and yet not ashamed of it. Her attention now went to that, as well as fully collapsing the umbrella she had in her hand.

"How hard is it raining out there?" I asked, trying not to stare into her eyes.

"You know how people say it's raining cats and dogs?" She told me. I nodded, hanging on to every word.

"Well, it's raining a hell of a lot of cats and dogs." She answered, a little laugh as she gestured to the glass door.

I walked up to her, putting the broom and dustpan aside.

"Is there, um, anything I can help you find today?" I asked, as our eyes met and my heart started to beat to the tempo of an insanely fast electronic remix.

"I've never been here, actually. It's my first time." She said, walking in. "I'm staying with a friend for a while and I wanted to get something to read with this stormy weather, but as I ventured it only got even more stormy."

"Got anything specific that you're looking for?" I asked, praying that she would.

"I don't really. I read almost anything with a cover."

"Well, follow me." I gestured her to the back of the store to a specific bookshelf. It was entitled by my mother, "Quality Trash".

My mother always rated books on a one hundred point scale, as she used to be a high school English teacher. If anything is good, she has me or Lauren read it. If one of us thinks it's bad, but the other thinks it's good, it ends up in the "Quality Trash" section.

The girl laughed at seeing the sign, and I smiled.

"'Of Mice and Men'?" She questioned, seeing as if it was a new addition to the shelves.

"I didn't quite like the pacing of the novel." I answered.

"It was really sad, but yeah the pacing threw me off too." She replied, putting it back on the shelf.

"Do you like Hemingway?" I asked her.

"You could tell." She smiled. Gosh, her smile was something magnetic. It just attracted other people to smile with her.

"Have you read A Farewell To Arms?" I asked. She nodded.

"To Have and Have Not?" She nodded again.

"Hmm.." I navigated our Hemingway section, and stopped at one specific book.

"Here." I gave her the novel.

"The Garden of Eden?" She raised an eyebrow.

"It's actually really good." I explained. "It's about this couple who just got married, and they both fall in love with the same girl. It was published 25 years after his death."

She looked at the book in her hands and got extremely happy.

"My parents- they have a house where there's an entire library. I finished all the books there a while ago. They actually never had Hemingway." The girl looked at the countless other novels around her. "What else do you guys have?"

"Well, we have the Newest Releases section, but it's kind of small because my mom reads a lot of it. We have a Classics section, which you're currently in. We have a Discount section, a Reference section. And, of course-"