leap of faith (Completed)

chapter 1

The air was crisp, almost biting, Evyana shoved her hands in her coat pockets as she walked. Her coat wasn't exactly warm for the kind of weather she was facing, she braved through the cold streets, getting home to the warmth was a comfort she recalled as she tread through. Autumn always cheered her up, the changing color of the leaves a delight, the falling leaves gave her a sense of melancholy, but also served as a reminder, that everything gets worse before it gets better, that soon winter would arrive, covering everything in a blanket of white, and then come spring everything will bloom again, that for new beginnings, endings are imperative.

The cobbled streets distracted her , as she had to maintain balance in her high heels, she wasn't as tall as she'd have liked, her mum always said, " You should have been more active as a child, you'd have grown taller." A bitter sweet smile crossed her face at that memory.

The sun was about to set, casting shadows around, she'd almost reached home, the front gate seemed dull and daunting under the morose weather, the lawn was messed up as she couldn't bring herself to clear it up , the leaves would still fall for a while though so she decided to procrastinate . The familiar stairs of her battered down home, seemed comforting , the house was weathered down by the years , she managed to get the repairs done though. She'd thought about moving ,but couldn't bring herself to it. It was the only memorabilia of her past. A past , that she'd always carry around with her, it followed her around like a rain cloud, a past that she was still clinging to but knew she'd have to let go off eventually .

The empty house, seemed to taunt her too, some days more so than others , she'd either put on music to chase the deafening silence away, or play a movie which she only watched absently , or call her bestfriend over . Evyana was lucky that Adrian lived close by, her house was at the out skirts of the town , in a secluded area , and among the closest houses was his, which was a good 15 min walk away.
"Peace" , they said they wanted peace, she thought, it was peaceful away from the hustle and bustle of their cheery little town, but sometimes , the remoteness seemed incarcerating.

The reason, just lurked behind her carefully crafted, wall of memories , the ones she kept hidden , the ones that reared their head in her darkest moments to coil themselves around her, almost consuming. Today , she was successful in keeping them at bay. She picked up her phone to call Adrian as she started on with dinner . She recalled how they'd been friends for so long , his family had moved into the town, when they were in high school , they never really talked back then , he was a scrawny , tall , shaggy haired guy she'd seen around school ,they became acquaintances a year later and then started talking because of a mutual friend of theirs and after that there had been no turning back .

As Evyana lived all alone now it was their daily ritual, a call in the evening. Mostly it was just an assurance for Adrian , to set his mind at ease that she was fine and in case she needed him , he'd be over in 15 .

It took 3 rings for him to pick up , " How was work?" he asked without missing a beat. " Same old same old." was her reply.

"No new books? No radical tattoos? Nothing?" he probed, she'd gotten a tattoo few months ago, and he was the first person she'd told about it , who else would it have been, it wasn't like her life was filled with people.

"Not every day's my lucky day and nope nothing eventful happened." She responded dryly.

" What's up with you? Any new games you've been playing?" she knew a geek rant was coming up and that's exactly why she'd asked .

Adrian was the most caring bestfriend a person could have asked for , and she knew the next thing he'd ask was something she didn't want to talk about , so asking him about gaming , was the best thing to veer him off the track.

" I've been testing a game, and it'll be up for launch in a month or so and also installed one that's a few years old but I hadn't had a chance to play it yet. So yeah life's pretty good right now!" He gushed.

They chatted on for a while, as she went on with her chores and hung up when she decided she'd go to bed.
For someone who spent all her days around books, Evyana never seemed to get tired of them. The little girl, living in the isolated house, with no friends , had only had books as her companions.

They helped her, escape to a world where her surroundings couldn't chase her , the screams and tears didn't reach her as she was travelling through realms , or fighting monsters or demigods even. Evyana had grown up, clinging to books as a drowning man to a lifeboat. The first time she'd visited the library was with her father, for all his flaws he'd still managed to introduce her to some of the best things in life. After that, whenever she'd visited town, with her mother, to run errands she made sure to go to the library , even when her mother actively discouraged it. Her mother wasn't too keen on her reading books that weren't related to her curriculum. She puzzled her sometimes , both her parents did actually, but Evyana had made friends with books , so she mostly managed to stay sane because of them .

Now , working as a librarian , she looked back at those days and smiled a wistful smile, her job though, that she loved , it was hardly enough to splurge , but it didn't require much for a woman who lived all alone. She opened the book that was placed by her bedside table , as she settled in for the night and dozed off as she read her night light still on, it was a common occurrence as she often drifted off as she read.