tucked in a book

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

There were a few photos tucked away in a book. They served more as bookmarks to some of Zoe's preferred poems in the book, and she'd been quite careful about it as she went. It did seem rather cliche, doing that to a book of Emily Dickinson's poetry but, well, Zoe did figure that if you were going to read poetry, especially if you were a girl, then you should probably pick up Emily Dickinson at some point in time. Plus, Zoe was hoping that Becky would like it.

Especially as Zoe had actually purchased the book for her friend. She'd been able to squirrel away some money last Christmas to get a few gifts for her friends, and she'd seen this particular copy in a secondhand book store. So it did have a few turned corners and a battered cover, not to mention the yellowing, but it was still a very good copy, and Zoe had been very careful with it over the holidays.

Then Zoe had finally heard that Becky had come back and, naturally excited and eager to give the gift in person, Zoe showed up. she knocked on her friend's door and waited, her usual nervousness fueling her excitement to the point that when Becky finally opened the door, Zoe practically shoved the book at her. "It's for Christmas!" she blurted, only to immediately smile nervously.

[Steinbeck Dunn]

At the moment, Becky was holding Applesauce in her lap and trying to give him some quality playtime to get him out of his I-hate-moving funk. She jumped a little bit when there was a knock at the door and Applesauce skittered out of her lap and ran back into his cage through the open door. “Scaredy cat,” she mocked him before standing up and heading towards the door.

Seeing the girl on the other side made her beam in delight. She’d missed Zoe like crazy and had yet to see her since her return. “Zoe!” she exclaimed happily, barely even noticing the present at first. “Oh my gosh, it is so nice to see you again. How have you been? Is everything good? Oh my gosh,” she said, managing to catch the book before it fell. “Oh my gosh, for Christmas, Zoe, that’s so sweet, you didn’t have to!”

She put a hand to her mouth once she got her bearings and carefully opened the beautiful book. “Emily Dickinson. Zoe, oh, it’s beautiful!” she exclaimed. She always preferred loved-on copies of books, and this one was lovely. When she stumbled across one of the special bookmarks, she gasped. “With photos! This is amazing!”

[Zoe Wallerstein-Smythe]

The beam was met with a shyer smile from Zoe, her eyes lowering. She nodded though, nodded as Becky asked her if things have been good. "I know: I just, well, I saw it in a shop and I thought you'd enjoy it," she said, her ears coloring a little. "It didn't cost much, I promise."

Because everyone always seemed to be worried about Zoe spending money. As if she didn't spend most of her funds on film and other photography essentials. Though now that she had the two cameras, she could at least cut back a little on the film. That cutback clearly didn't affect production: the photos tucked away proved that.

"Those are just a few of my, um, practice shots, really," said Zoe, coloring. "Of the Academy and so forth. I used them to mark, um, my favorites," Zoe reached up to push back some of her hair, which she'd started to allow to grow out and now had a sort of cute shag as opposed to her previous pixie cut. She smiled nervously, shifting again, wondering if she should just start talking to Becky or wait for a welcome inside or...