On a crowded street in 1944
Summary - The four walls of Upton’s General Store were all Hailey knew although she longed to see what else life had to offer. When a handsome soldier walks through the door, she thinks he might just be the answer to the life she wants to have. But it was 1944 and the country was at war. Would fate smile on her or would her heart be another casualty of the war?
Chapters - 4/15
Notes - Happy Saturday folks! Hope you enjoy this chapter ❤️ AO3 Link
‘Hailey!’ Her father’s voice bounced loudly up the stairs, ricocheting off the walls and into Hailey’s room. She groaned audibly and buried her head further under the blankets. She’d been in the middle of a dream, a perfect dream filled with soft lips and emerald green eyes. ‘Hailey!’ His voice was louder now, his displeasure obvious, so she decided it wasn’t worth the effort of trying to get back to her dream world and potentially suffer her fathers bad mood.
He hadn’t been home when she had snuck back in last night, his business meeting clearly running long. That was usually a good thing but his tone right now didn’t indicate that the meeting had necessarily reached a positive conclusion. She was thankful she had been able to slip back into their apartment unnoticed, her mother had fallen asleep on the couch, the pants she had been darning draped over her lap, the sewing box open on the floor. Hailey’s cheeks were still warm when she tucked herself into bed, her fingers still tracing her lips remembering the feeling of Jay’s pressed softly against them.
She flung the blanket off herself and called back down to him that she would just be a moment, tugging on a pair of slippers and her dressing gown - the sun had barely risen so the store wasn’t due to be open for another hour or so, so she had plenty of time to get dressed before her shift started.
‘Spending your money on books again,’ her father said with a scoff, gesturing at a newspaper wrapped package that was sitting on the counter. Her father was the sort of man who didn’t understand reading for pleasure, though he didn’t seem to understand reading for the pursuit of knowledge either. She didn’t know when she had last seen him open a book for either purpose. But Hailey adored both. She loved getting lost in a fictional world created by somebody’s mind, but she also loved learning all about things that non-fiction books contained. The world was so much larger than just this store and the people on this street and Hailey wanted to find out everything she could. Knowledge was power, she’d read that somewhere when she was younger and had taken it to heart as she devoured whatever books she could get her hands on.
‘Pardon?’ She said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes in confusion. She hadn’t asked Mrs Smith to put anything aside recently, nor had she been contacted to say there was anything the store owner couldn’t sell. But despite that, her father seemed to be correct, the package sitting on the side looked mighty like a book. It was the correct size and shape, even with the newspaper wrapping covering its contents.
‘It’s got your name on it,’ her father said, his tone suddenly turning accusatory at Hailey’s apparent lack of knowledge of the package’s contents.
‘Oh,’ Hailey said, shaking her head slightly to wake herself up. ‘Yes,’ she said thinking quickly. ‘Mrs Smith had another delivery that she couldn’t sell some of the books so she said she’d put one side for me, this must be it.’ Hailey smiled and picked up the package. It wasn’t Mrs Smith’s handwriting that had scrawled Hailey on the top right hand corner between the printed text, her father didn’t pay much attention to things like that though. They didn’t affect his bottom line so he didn’t care.
‘That woman must think we are a charity case,’ he grunted. The last thing her father wanted to be seen as was unsuccessful in this town, his pride was too important to him for that.
‘She just knows I like books,’ Hailey said with a small smile, clutching the book tightly against her chest. She didn’t know for certain whose writing it was but something made her want to hold on just a little tighter as if at any moment her father might reach out and snatch it away.
‘Well just make sure you pick them up from her in the future, don’t be making her bring them down here and leave them on the doorstep,’ he huffed, turning back to the ledger he had been studying intently when she had walked in, his brow furrowed deeply.
‘Of course father, I’ll just go put it upstairs and get ready then I’ll be back down to open up,’ she smiled again, this time a little forced but she turned on her heel when he grunted in response.
The package had been left on the doorstep? Then it definitely wasn’t from Mrs Smith. She had a bad knee and always told Hailey she could never walk anywhere before midday as it took so long to warm up. Hailey didn’t know how much truth there was to that but still, you never saw Mrs Smith outside of her shop until after the church bell had chimed for 12 o’clock.
Tucking the package under her arm Hailey took the stairs two at a time, desperate to get to the relative privacy of her bedroom. Closing the door quickly behind her, kicking off her slippers and tucking her legs up under her as she took a seat on the bed, she looked again at the package in her hand.
The Hailey was written neatly at the top. If she had to guess, she would say it was a man’s writing - it was missing a certain curled aspect that a woman’s penmanship tended to have. Her heart quickened, there was only one member of the opposite sex who might give her a book and even the possibility of that set her alight.
Undoing the wrapping, which was the newspaper from yesterday, she recognised the headline, making sure not to rip through her own name, a book fell onto her lap along with an envelope.
The book was not one Hailey had read but one she had seen at the bookstore for years and had wanted to get her hands on; it was one of Agatha Christie’s novels, The Mysterious Affair at Styles. The copy was worn, the edges starting to fray and the pages discoloured from being thumbed through many times. She opened the cover and her heart jumped into her mouth.
Dearest Hailey,
It’s not a new book, and I’ll buy you one one day, but it’s the only book I own.
And now it is yours,
Forever,
Jay
Her eyes stung with tears as she clutched the book to her chest.
She hadn’t been dreaming about what she had felt yesterday, and he felt the same.
He had given her the only book he owned, a book he clearly loved judging from the state of it. In the final few hours he had before he left for war, left to fight for their country, heading into unknown danger, he spent it delivering a book to her.
Part of her wondered if he gave it to her so she wouldn’t forget him, but how could she ever forget him. You could never forget someone who made you feel like that, who kissed you like that, who filled your dreams the way he had last night.
Wiping away an escaped tear with her finger tip, she gently closed the book, brushing her fingers across the front, she left it on her lap as she picked up the envelope.
She let out a wet chuckle, it was one of the envelopes she had sold him the day before. She opened it and pulled out a single sheet of note paper.
Dearest Hailey,
I hope this isn’t overstepping, you said I could write to you after all and I couldn’t wait.
I wanted to give you something to remember our evening together, it’s my favourite book. My only book. I don’t know if you’ve read it and it’s not the romantic novel you want to give to the girl who stole your heart in a single evening, but it’s all I have. I’ll buy you the romantic novel when I return, it will be brand new and you will be the one to break the spine.
I just told you you stole my heart. It is true. It is yours and I hope when I come back, it will still be yours. I know I shouldn’t have asked to kiss you last night. A girl like you deserves more than a kiss under a street light but I couldn’t help myself. The feeling of your lips on mine will keep me safe over there.
I am running out of time and running short of paper so I will say farewell for now. I look forward to your reply and will treasure the words you write.
Forever Yours,
Jay
Hailey was frozen, her eyes still fixed on the page. It was only when a tear splashed onto the paper that she realised she was crying. Sniffing and wiping her eyes, not wanting to stain the letter with anymore tears and smudge the ink, she folded up the letter and tucked it safely into the book.
Getting off the bed, she tucked it under the mattress. She kept all of her important possessions under the mattress away from prying eyes and that book and its letter had just become her most prized belongings.
Never in her wildest dreams did she ever think someone would feel that way about her and want to write such tender and heartfelt things. She wanted to write back to him immediately but her heart skipped a beat when she realised she would need to wait for another letter to know where she should be sending it to. He hadn’t included his troop and obviously he didn’t know his destination yet either.
Still, she would write something and as soon as she knew where to send it she would run to the post office and get it mailed off.
The urge to get the letter back out and reread the words he had written, run her fingers across the ink and imagine him writing it that morning, was so strong. However her mother could walk in at any second and she was needed down at the store. She would have to wait until the evening to spend some more time with his letter, with him.
She tried to focus during the day, to be the useful sales assistant she usually was but her mind was still upstairs replaying the words that he had written to her. She wanted to hold the letter against her chest, close to her heart and never let it go. She wanted to read the book and imagine him holding the same book he had held, the fingers that had touched those pages had touched her too.
When the store quietened down in the early afternoon she let herself continue the day dream, praying she wouldn’t have to wait long for the next letter. She needed to hear from him again more than she had needed anything else before in her short life.
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