Mia Hill. College bound with an athletic scholarship. A go-getter with big dreams and a fully thought out plan to make sure they come true.
But with her father's release from prison looming and the inevitable stresses of adulting, everything she wa...
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Time is a mysterious concept. While it's true that a minute is only sixty seconds, it doesn't always feel like that. Sometimes, those sixty seconds feel sped up, racing by and making you feel like you'll never have enough of them. Other times, like right now, those sixty seconds roll by in painstakingly slow ticks. Each and every lingering one accounted for.
The apartment complex ahead of me looks solid in construction, but it's scattered in patches of peeling paint, flaking off in tiny pieces, worn by the storms it's been through.
I feel almost frozen while I sit in my car, a tattered box my only companion in the passenger seat as I stare at every detail in front of me a hundred times over. I've been avoiding the real reason I'm here, sitting back and making up stories about each household. Giving them all a background and life that most likely doesn't match an ounce of who they actually are.
Like the balcony with the treadmill. I've decided that's a single man, just starting out in his career. He lives here to make ends meet while he works his way up the ladder at work. He'll eventually move, get one of those places along the water, the ones ridiculously overpriced simply because they have the words "ocean view" attached to the listing.
There's a balcony covered in plants, every inch of railing lined in some type of greenery, and they're flourishing. I wonder who lives there. If they have a passion for gardening or a slight addiction to buying plants every outing. Maybe they just like the feel of living in a more forested area, rather than looking out their window and seeing a similar wall of apartments across the street. Do they live alone? Maybe the plants keep them company.
It's very different from the balcony beside it. Christmas lights are still strung from the railing, dangling over the side and wrapping around the post that leads to the roof. There's also a playhouse taking up half the space and a bike hangs from the overhang, all showing a more family friendly environment that has me smiling.
A few of the balconies are empty, giving me a bit of a challenge when coming up with a story. Some have limited furniture or just a simple barbecue. Those are the ones that have my heart reminding me why I'm here. It's in the way it tightens and then pounds so damn loud that I keep pulling my eyes back to the place coated in greenery. The one overcome in plants. For whatever reason, that's the one that keeps me calm. It's got this energy about it, a distraction, a soothing effect. It takes my mind off the fact that my dad resides in one of those apartments up there. Most likely one of the empty ones. The ones making my heart jump.
My eyes fall to the box beside me, sitting alone on the seat. I've combed through every letter, let the words wrap around me in this overwhelming blanket of conflicting emotion. Some of them were hard to read, some gave me hope. I think in a really messed up way, his time spent locked behind bars might've saved him. I don't exactly know for sure, but there was a change in his letters over time. A gentleness, reprieve, acceptance. It's the only thing that has me staring at the apartment complex, getting ready to face the one person that's had me running for years.
