(no subject)

Midterms are fast approaching, and with it, Dani's least favorite time of year. She tells herself every time she thinks so that she's being melodramatic, that she should be better than this by now, but she can't help the fact that whenever she steps out of her building to a street lit up for the holidays and seasonal decor in all the window displays, it feels like salt in a wound, like a twisted knife. There were lights on her street on the worst night of her life. People all over the city are getting ready to celebrate with their families, and she'll never see hers again. Christmas for her will always be inextricable from grief, and she hates that almost as much as she hates herself for feeling the way she does.

She is, at least, determined not to let it fuck up her schoolwork too much, studying at every chance she gets. Today, it's been cool and rainy, more autumn than winter, and as such, it's been a slow day at the used bookstore where she works. Rather than standing around behind the counter waiting for anyone to come in, she curls up in an armchair instead — one with a view of the front door, but that lets her comfortably relax, a large textbook perched in her lap, a notebook on one arm of the chair that she's been making intermittent notes in as she reads.

A gust of wind alerts her to the fact that she's no longer alone in the shop, and she lifts her head to look toward the doorway, already trying to move her belongings aside as carefully as she can. "Hi," she says. "Sorry, I'll be right with you. Is there anything I can help you find?"