Chapter 152: The Weight of Next Sunday
{Elira}
~**^**~
Tamryn crossed her arms, her iced tea in hand. "As long as lunch doesn’t take forever. The bookstore closes early on Sundays."
Nari gasped, looking scandalized. "So practical. You really want to flip dusty pages over pasta?"
"Yes," Tamryn replied flatly.
Juniper laughed under her breath, setting her shake down. "I’m with Tamryn. Books before food."
"Food before books," Nari shot back instantly. Then she turned to me, her eyes narrowing with mock intensity. "Elira. You are the tie-breaker. What’s your pick?"
My heart gave a tiny jolt at the sudden attention, but I forced a smile, shifting the milkshake between my hands.
"Lunch first, then the bookstore next," I said softly.
Nari slapped the counter in triumph. "Ha! Victory!"
Juniper groaned. Cambria only shook her head with quiet amusement, and Tamryn muttered something under her breath about wasted daylight.
---
The café was already packed when we slipped into a booth, half-empty cups from earlier clutched in our hands.
The smell of garlic bread and roasted herbs wrapped around me, warm and tempting, and the moment we sat, Nari dropped her head dramatically against the table.
"If I don’t get fed in the next five minutes, I’m going to faint," she moaned.
Juniper didn’t even glance up from the menu. "You just inhaled half a slush. If you faint, it will be from sugar shock."
Nari lifted her head just enough to stick her tongue out before collapsing again.
Cambria, as usual, was the calmest of us. She turned her menu upright and studied it the way she studied everything—quietly, thoroughly, like nothing in the world could rush her.
"The pasta is supposed to be good here. It is freshly made."
"Protein options too," Tamryn added, her tone as flat as ever, though she was clearly reading her own menu. "Grilled chicken and Salmon."
"That’s boring." Nari spun the menu around and stabbed her finger at a glossy picture of a burger stacked so high it looked like it might topple. "Now this is food. Look at that beast."
Juniper finally looked up, snorted, and shook her head. "That’s not food. That’s a death wish."
I laughed quietly, my fingers wrapping tighter around the cool plastic of my milkshake cup.
Their back-and-forth was so natural, so lively, it almost felt as if the conversation in the café earlier hadn’t taken place. Almost.
Eventually, we ordered—Cambria with pasta, Tamryn with her grilled chicken, Juniper with a salad she swore she would regret later, and Nari with her monster burger.
And me, I kept it simple with my fries and chicken strips. My stomach couldn’t quite handle anything heavier.
While we waited, the conversation shifted.
"The bookstore outside town isn’t just a shop," Cambria said, her voice carrying that spark of excitement she usually kept hidden. "They carry archives. Things from old estates, even journals sometimes."
Nari groaned, slouching deeper into her seat. "So, we are going from food coma to dust coma. Wonderful."
"You will live," Tamryn said flatly, though her lips twitched like she was fighting a smile.
Juniper leaned toward me, her salad fork resting between her fingers. "What about you, Elira? What treasure are you hoping to find?"
My throat tightened. The treasure I wanted couldn’t be tucked on a shelf—it was waiting with a witch who held the truth to my life.
But I forced a small smile and said instead, "Maybe an old novel. Something forgotten."
Nari perked instantly, her grin devilish. "A romance?"
Heat flared in my cheeks almost immediately. "Maybe."
Nari’s squeal set the whole table off. Juniper smirked knowingly, Cambria tried and failed to hide her laugh, and even Tamryn shook her head like she couldn’t believe us.
By the time the food arrived, the table was alive with chatter and clattering forks.
Nari nearly unhinged her jaw trying to bite into her burger while Juniper narrated it like a dramatic play.
Cambria twirled her pasta with quiet contentment, and Tamryn calmly dissected her chicken as though nothing in the world could fluster her.
And me? I ate, I smiled, I let their laughter curl warm in my chest.
For this hour, I could pretend I was only a girl having lunch with her friends.
Not someone who had just been told her mother had caged her power. Not someone who would be facing the witch next Sunday.
Just Elira, here and now.
---
By the time we left the bookstore, my arms ached from the weight of our bags—Cambria’s stacked with journals, Tamryn’s with strategy texts, Juniper’s with sketchbooks she claimed were "for inspiration," and Nari’s... well, she somehow left with nothing but still complained her feet hurt the most.
It was nearly dusk when we trudged back through ESA’s gates, the sky painted with streaks of orange and pink.
"Never again," Juniper muttered as we took the elevator to our dorm floor. "Next time, we’ll skip the bookstore. My legs are officially done."
"You are just weak," Nari countered, though her voice came out in a dramatic groan as she stumbled through our dorm door.
She flopped onto her bunk like she had been dragged through a battlefield. "I’m exhausted. But..."
To my disbelief, she immediately snatched up her tablet from the side table and powered it on with a flourish.
Juniper stared at her like she had lost her mind. "You were just whining about death by bookstore."
"This," Nari said, holding her tablet aloft like a sacred relic, "is important. My followers are waiting for today’s update. Can’t keep them hungry."
Cambria rolled her eyes fondly as she slipped her new books neatly onto her shelf. Tamryn set her bag down, already pulling her hair free from its tie with a relieved sigh.
I sank onto my own bed, setting my bags down by the side.
For a moment, I just listened: Juniper’s muttering, Nari’s dramatic typing, Cambria’s quiet humming, Tamryn’s steady movements.
The normal rhythm of our room wrapped around me like a blanket.
But beneath it, I still felt the weight from the café and the reality as next Sunday lingered like a shadow at the back of my mind.