That time will fly, and I’ll be back home whenever I can, for however long I can be, until I’m back for good.
Because I will be.
Grangewood Creek is my home, no matter what.
But I hate affection, and my older sister knows that.
So, instead of forcing me into something I suddenly want from her, she threads her arm through mine and rests her head on my other shoulder, before Lizzie presses 'play'on the movie.
Not another word is spoken for the rest of it, until Willow cries out, reminding us that it’s time for a feed.
***
It’s my last day in Grangewood Creek before I fly out later this afternoon to New York City, the first stop on the tour I’ve been entrusted to open. And something in the pit of my stomach tells me the phone call I’m scheduled to get tomorrow will change my life forever.
Will it change the course of my career? Or will it change the quality of my life moving forward? These are questions I don’t have the answer to.
I wish I could go back to my apartment, look into a crystal ball, and see exactly where my life will be six months from now.
Will I be thriving?
Will I be home?
Will I be happy?
All answers I need to know, but I have to hold out for.
Finding a bench in an empty open park, I pull a notebook and a pen out of my backpack, and watch as cars pass me by.
The sun has barely risen, still hiding behind some clouds, and I take it all in.
I watch Mr. and Mrs. Bishop walk past me, deep in conversation. She's no doubt telling him the latest gossip intown, and going by the look on his face, he hasn’t heard a word of it.
I send a silent 'thank you'to the parting clouds that the Bishops didn’t stop to hound me about what’s going on in my life.
I watch a couple stroll through Grangewood Botanical Park, hand in hand, both with smiles on their faces, and my chest aches a little.
Not with jealousy or longing, but with dread.
What if that’s something I never get to experience?
I close my eyes, draw a deep, steady breath, and look down at the plain paper in front of me.
Words flow out of me so seamlessly that I don’t even have to think about it. If they make sense, I don’t know, but it doesn’t stop me.
I have a lot that I want to say, and even more people that I could tell it all to, and yet…
And yet,here I am, in an empty park, relaying the words to myself.
Because there is nobody in the universe that I would want to burden with the fact that I woke up three months ago thinking I was dying. Tomorrow, I’ll find out if I was being dramatic, or if I was right.
Not a single person needs to know until absolutely necessary, and that’s how I intend to keep it.
My phone vibrates beside my notebook, and my eyes flash to the screen to see Akira’s name pop up.
I removed the heart emoji she put next to it almost immediately, not liking the feeling it gave me.
It just didn’t feel…right,to see that sort of declaration beside her name, no matter how meaningless and superficial.
