Believe

Reluctantly he dropped the key through the slot in the door and slowly looked around him. He knew this wasn’t his home and he couldn’t stay here forever, but it felt like home, more than anywhere else he had ever lived. Never before had he had such misgivings about leaving. The grey and overcast sky seemed fitting for how he was feeling, and as he bent down to lift his suitcase from the step, a cold drizzle began to fall. In the distance, he could hear the foghorn sound over the harbor that was all but invisible with the fog rolling in from the sea.

He didn’t know how long he had been standing there looking out over the front garden when he realized the weather was much worse than he realized. The rain seemed to be coming down sideways in slanted sheets, and the gusts of wind made the tiny droplets feel like needles made of ice against his unprotected skin. He shivered violently with the cold and started trudging down the walk towards the gate. Even though he was quickly becoming wet through, he just couldn’t make himself walk any faster way from the house.

With each step, he could feel the warmth of living in the stone cottage draining from him. He daren’t look back towards the welcoming glow of the windows, as he was afraid, he wouldn’t make it out of the garden. Instead, he’d be doomed to be frozen, staring forlornly, at the cottage for the rest of his life. He laughed to himself suddenly. It really wasn’t like him to be so melancholy and that last thought really was quite extreme. Honestly, he thought, it’s just a house in a town on the edge of the sea. It could be anywhere…

He chuckled again, as he knew that last line just wasn’t true. There was something magic about this town and about this cottage. His short-lived stay had been the happiest he had ever been. From the moment he arrived, he felt it in his core. This was his home. This was where he was supposed to live, but why did he fight it so. Why was he so adamant that he was from the City and that was the only place for him? Why did he insist on such a quick sale of the cottage, to get rid of it without taking the time to explore it fully?

They always say hindsight is 20/20 and now he truly understood what the saying meant. His grandmother’s cottage now belonged to a new family. There was no way he could turn back now. It was gone from his life. Living there was over. He had had a few short weeks and he should be grateful for that, but now he realized he wanted so much more. He had been too focused on getting shot of everything to do with his grandmother, and in extension, his mother, that he hadn’t taken the time to know them. Money, his job, his status … why did he think those were so important? He had wasted so much of his life chasing these ridiculous ideas and not his dreams, and now it was too late.

All he had to show for his time in the cottage was the big jump in his bank account and the envelope with his name written on it by his grandmother. He opened it and found a single sheet of paper with the word believe written in big black letters across the page. Believe in what? What did she mean? Why did she leave this for him? What was she trying to tell him? What did she believe? Believe that he could follow his dreams and leave his job in the City? Was it possible? Could he reverse the sale? Could he???

His phone began to ring in his hand and he was surprised to see the estate agent’s name on the screen. He couldn’t believe it … or could he?