Rusty fruit stands and festival signs flickered past her window. Pumpkins sat in bright orange rows, apples gleaming beneath hand-painted signs.
Smoke curled from food trucks parked along gravel shoulders. Wool blankets flapped in the breeze.
The air, even through the glass, felt crisp. Smelled like woodsmoke and fallen leaves.
Lovely. Romantic, even.
She thought about stopping. Letting the moment settle. Maybe picking up apaper cup of cider from a roadside stand, letting the warmth of it wrap around her for a minute.
In another life, she might’ve.
Might’ve slowed down. Let herself breathe in the change of season, sip something warm for the sake of it.
Not today.
She didn’t need nostalgia. She needed distance. She drove as if forward was the only option.
By early afternoon,her body protested. Stiff knees. Aching back. A gnawing hunger she hadn’t noticed until it drowned out her thoughts.
She hadn’t planned to stop. Hadn’t even noticed how long it had been since she’d last eaten. But when she spotted a roadside diner, its silver frame gleaming beside a quiet lake, her hands turned the wheel before she could second-guess.
The neon OPEN sign buzzed faintly against the window.
Arden slid into a corner booth where the vinyl groaned beneath her, the table sticky but warm from the sun cutting through the glass.
The waitress poured her coffee without asking. Bitter. Strong. A jolt to the system. She took another sip. Then another. It grounded her anyway.
“Long drive?” the waitress asked, eyes kind but unreadable.
Arden nodded. “Heading north.”
She drank slowly, eyes fixed on the lake beyond the glass. The surface shifted in lazy pulses, the wind dragging across the water like a passing thought.
Before getting back on the road She rested against the hood, steam curling from the cup between her hands. The heat bled into her fingers, slow and steady, chasing off the chill one joint at a time. The cold nipped at her cheeks, sharp but clean. Steam curled upward in slow, silver spirals before vanishing into the open air.
The lake glinted in the pale light, reflecting a sky bruised by oncoming weather. Wind moved through the trees with a whisper, almost enough to make her believe they were speaking.
Warning her.
Encouraging her.
Maybe both—she couldn’t tell.
The water met the sky at the far edge of her vision, soft and seamless; the boundary seemed to vanish.
Her thoughts stretched with the horizon, her gaze fixed on the place where sky and water blurred.
She didn’t see an ending there.
Andfor a moment, Arden let her eyes close. Just for a breath.
The road waited, and so, she drove on.
?
Arden’s first glimpse of the city rose like a challenge: steel and glass catching the sun, towering without apology.
Overpasses twisted overhead. Lanes split and tangled, feeding into the gridlock ahead like veins pumping into a restless heart. The enormity of it stole her breath.
