The Road to Maple Ridge

The car ride was quiet, except for the occasional hum of the tires against the road and the soft shuffle of a playlist playing songs I didn't know. My mom didn't talk much, and I didn't either. It wasn't like we were mad or anything, we were just both in our heads. Maybe hers was full of grown-up stress, and mine was just... full.

I stared out the window, watching the trees blur past. They looked like the ones back home, but different too. Taller. More spaced out. The sky felt bigger here. Like there was more air. Like maybe I could finally breathe.

We were moving to Maple Ridge. Not because we wanted to, but because we had to. My mom lost her job, and my grandma offered us a place to stay while we figured things out. I hadn't seen grandma since I was, like, seven. I remembered her house only in pieces, a big porch, a creaky hallway, and the smell of peppermint tea.

I didn't say goodbye to a lot of people before we left. Not because I didn't care, but because it was easier that way. Some people ghost you the second life gets inconvenient anyway. I left a note for FaithAnn and texted Hunter that I'd miss him. He didn't text back right away, but I think he meant to.

The rest of the drive felt like a blur. I closed my eyes for a while, half sleeping, thinking about how weird it is to go from a whole life to nothing in just a few hours.

When the GPS said, "You have arrived," I opened my eyes.

We pulled into a gravel driveway that crunched under the tires, and there it was: Grandma's house. White siding, green shutters, and wind chimes that jingled like they were saying hello. It was old but cozy, like something out of a movie where the main character has to move somewhere small and slow to figure their life out.

Grandma came out onto the porch, wiping her hands on a dish towel. She looked the same, but smaller than I remembered. More lines on her face, but her smile still made me feel like a kid again for a second.

"Hi, baby," she said, reaching out for a hug.

I stepped into her arms, and for a moment, the weight I'd been carrying slipped off my shoulders. Just a little.

Inside, the house smelled like cinnamon and wood. My mom and grandma talked for a while in the kitchen. I wandered down the hall, dragging my fingers alone the walls like I was trying to remember being seven again.

The room I'd be staying in had a twin bed, a tiny desk, and a window that looked out over the backyard. There was an old bookshelf with a few paperbacks and some dusty trophies from who knows what. I set my backpack down and sat on the bed, letting the silence settle around me.

That night, I couldn't sleep. My brain was buzzing, and everything felt unfamiliar. I missed my room. I missed knowing what was next. I missed being able to walk down the street and recognize things.

But the next morning, I woke up early. The sunlight was different here, soft, like it didn't want to wake me up too harshly. I got dressed and slipped outside.

The air smelled like pine trees and wet grass. I walked down the driveway and started following the dirt road that led away from the house. I didn't know where it went, but that felt kind of okay.

After a while, I found a hill with a big rock at the top and climbed up to sit. From there, I could see most of the trees below, the tiny roof of grandma's house, and the sky stretching out forever.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt still. Like maybe this wasn't the end of the world. Maybe it was just the start of a new one.

I sat there for a while, legs crossed on the rock, just letting the breeze mess up my hair. I didn't even try to fix it. No one was around to see me, and for once, I didn't care. I took out my phone, but there was barely any service. No new texts. No notifications. Just the wallpaper of me and Jayden, taken months ago. I stared at it for a second before locking the screen and slipping it back into my pocket.

I closed my eyes and listened, like, really listened. There were birds chirping, leaves rustling, and the distant sound of a creek I couldn't see yet. It felt like the kind of place people write about in journals or poems. I don't really write poems, but if I did, I think I'd write one about this. About starting over, or maybe just starting.

After a while, I headed back. The dirt crunched under my shoes, and the sun was a little higher in the sky now. I was kind of hungry, but more than that, I felt... ready. Not like I had everything figured out. But ready to try. Ready to learn where everything was in this new town. Ready to see if the school here had anything good. Ready to maybe meet someone who liked the same weird music I did or sat alone at lunch too.

Grandma was in the kitchen again when I walked in, humming to some old song. She smiled when she saw me. "You found the hill?" she asked like it was some kind of secret.

"Yeah," I said. "It's nice up there."

She nodded like she already knew that. "It where I used to go when I needed to breathe."

I didn't say anything, but that stuck with me.

Later that day, we drove into town. It was small, like, movie scene small. There was a diner, a library, a post office that looked like it hadn't changed in fifty years. My mom needed to fill out paperwork for something, so I wandered off down the street. I passed a few kids around my age sitting on the steps of a store. One of them looked up and nodded at me. I nodded back, heart doing that dumb thing where it beats too fast for no reason.

I ended up at a little bookstore. The bell above the door jingled when I walked in, and the air smelled like paper and dust. A girl behind the counter looked up from her notebook and gave me a small smile. "You new?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "Just got here yesterday."

She tilted her head a little. "Maple Ridge isn't so bad once you know where to look."

I smiled back, a little surprised at how warm it made me feel. "I'll keep that in mind."

She talked for a few minutes, about books, about how boring summer can be when you're stuck inside. Her name was Ellie. She told me there was a lake not far from that people hung out at sometimes. She said I should come by the bookstore again, maybe on Thursday when she worked a longer shift. I said maybe I would.

When I left, I had a used book in my hand and something lighter in my chest. I couldn't explain it, but something about the way the day unfolded made me feel like maybe this place wasn't just where I ended up, it was where I was meant to be.

As we drove back to Grandma's, I looked out the window again, but this time it didn't feel like the world was rushing past me. It felt like I was finally catching up to it.

And somewhere, deep down, I knew this was the beginning of something. Not a perfect something. But something real. Something mine.