After All These Years | ✔

8 - CARLIE

Goodbyes are always the hardest.

They bring a sense of finality, and Carlie definitely did not want this to be the end. To end her life with Paul, Jen, Mackenzie and Caiden was the end to everything she had ever known.

She stood on the worn doorstep of her new home and took one last look at them, remembering how they looked now. It took everything inside her not to go back to them, pretend everything was alright and beg them to drive back home. Instead she forced a smile and made a gesture that was a sad excuse for a wave; then she stepped through the doors, shutting them behind her.

Elise Bennett welcomed her with a warm smile. "You must be Carlie."

The woman was thin, and her long, brown hair lay neatly down the front of her torso, like Carlie's did when she wore it down. She was beautiful, no doubt about that. Her eyes were cheerful, her smile: contagious. Carlie tried a smile back, and shifted as she put down her suitcase and took off her shoes. Clay, Elise's husband, gave Carlie a confident handshake when she stood back up, and smiled with his kind, brown eyes, "Welcome home."

Before she could let Clay's words sink in, Elise reached over her, "Here let me take your things" Carlie let her, not knowing what to say, or what to feel for that matter. Elise breathed, glancing at Clay before searching Carlie again. They were trying to fill an endless gap.

"Why don't we show you your room?"

They collected up the suitcases and Carlie followed Elise up the wide staircase while Clay retreated back to the privacy of his study. The door of Carlie's new bedroom lay open, awaiting her arrival.

The room was painted white, with white furniture and world maps, photo frames and bookshelves lining the walls. Even though it was still winter outside, the setting sunlight filling the room and bouncing off the white paint made it feel like summer again.

"Do you like it?" Elise asked, her eyes resting on the window opposite them.

Carlie turned her eyes and they met the woman's for only a second, replying with the most sincere honesty, "It's perfect."

Elise let out a breath, relieved. "Clay designed it you know. He makes a living doing this."

Carlie smiled, her hands filling her pockets. She walked over to the window, where the sheer curtains blew in the breeze. Outside, the sun was setting over the trees of the forest, and an orange glow filled the garden below.

"Best view in the house." Elise commented from behind her.

Carlie opened the window wide. The cool evening air ran over her body, making her hairs stand on end. The ground below her was filled with colour. Flowers lined the boundary between the private garden and the surrounding forest, and she knew they would soon be even more vivid in the coming months, as the temperature grew warmer. Her eyes searched the large garden and came to rest on a door in the far left corner. Almost covered by the overgrowth around it, she could only barely see glimpses of the wooden frame.

"No one would know it's there unless they saw it from your window." Elise was now standing next to her, at a comfortable distance.

"May I go down there?" It was the only way Carlie could think of to get away and let herself breathe.

Elise smiled, "Of course you can. The door downstairs leads to the garden. I'll go down as well and start making dinner. Come back in when you're ready." Carlie felt Elise's presence leave the room and leave her alone with her thoughts.

The glass door opened with ease as Carlie pushed it forward. She found herself in a sea of natural colours with some of the most beautiful flowers she had ever seen. Elise was right; the door on the opposite side of the garden was completely hidden from where she stood. There was something about it that beckoned to her. Maybe it was because it looked like the door out of the prison that was the garden. A pretty prison, but a prison nonetheless. It led to somewhere unknown and unfelt.

But she sat down on the decorated swinging seat in the corner, and crossed her legs under herself.

Everything here was great. But she couldn't love it. The fact that it was so perfect made her angry. In one way, she wanted everything there to be terrible, so she'd have plenty of reasons for hating it and wishing she was home.

But she didn't. Her new parent's weren't horrible, the town wasn't boring like she'd imagined and the house had felt like a home the minute she stepped into it. She hated feeling ungrateful, but despite everything, all she wanted was to be back with her family again.

Her eyes burned as she felt tears at the back of her eyes, and as the sun set and darkness filled the garden where she swung gently in the wind, she finally let them come.