Mornings grew softer.
Sophie started each day with her guitar beside the porch swing and coffee in her mother's old mug—faded flowers around the rim. The pages of her notebook slowly filled. Not with polished lyrics or grand declarations, but with fragments. Feelings. Honest, messy things.
Jake came by most days.
He never stayed long. Sometimes he brought breakfast. Other times, a cassette tape from high school or a book she used to love. He always left with a promise to come back.
And he always did.
One morning, she asked him to sit beside her while she played. Not for a performance—just to listen. As she sang a new melody, she watched the tension leave his shoulders. His eyes didn't shine with nostalgia anymore. They shone with something new.
Hope.
---
The attic had always been off-limits growing up.
Too dusty. Too dangerous. Too filled with things no one wanted to remember.
But something drew Sophie there now.
She climbed the stairs slowly, careful not to breathe in too deep. The air was thick with mothballs and forgotten summers. Boxes lined the walls. Some labeled. Most not.
She found one marked "Margot."
Her mother's name.
Inside: a stack of handwritten journals, old photo albums, and a dress folded with care—a deep blue she remembered from a picture, her mother standing in the yard with the wind catching the hem.
Sophie sat on the floor, the journal trembling in her hands.
October 3rd. Sophie left for New York today. I told her I was proud. I hope she believed me.
The ink bled slightly at the edges. Tears, maybe.
She turned the page.
She didn't look back when the taxi pulled away. I hope she never has to. But God, I miss her already.
Sophie pressed the book to her chest.
Her mother hadn't stopped loving her. Not even for a moment.
---
She showed Jake the journal later that evening.
They sat on a blanket in the backyard, stars slowly appearing above them.
"I used to think she gave up on me," Sophie said.
"She didn't."
"I see that now."
Jake looked at her, quiet for a long moment. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Why did you really leave?"
Sophie hesitated.
Then: "Because I thought I had to become someone else to matter. Because I thought staying meant failing. And because… I was scared of turning into her."
Jake reached out, gently taking her hand. "You didn't."
"I know. But I also didn't realize how much of her I carried with me. And how much of that was good."
The silence between them wasn't heavy this time.
It was full of understanding.
---
They kissed that night.
Not in the dramatic, sweeping way stories often promise. But in a quiet, unhurried way. Like a memory finally catching up to the present.
Sophie leaned into him, her hand at his jaw, and the years they'd lost melted between them.
It wasn't perfect.
It was better.
It was real.
---
The next morning, Sophie called the label in New York.
She spoke with her agent. Declined the tour offer. Politely turned down the studio schedule.
"I just need time," she said.
There was a pause.
Then: "You've earned it."
She hung up, tears sliding down her cheeks—not because she was sad, but because she felt something she hadn't in years.
Free.
---
That night, Jake brought her a gift.
It was small—a key on a thin leather cord.
"This was yours," he said. "Your mom gave it to me a week after you left."
Sophie stared at it. "Why?"
"She said, 'One day, she'll come back. And when she does, she'll need someone to remind her she belongs here.'"
Sophie closed her eyes.
"She always knew."
Jake nodded. "Yeah. She did."
Sophie slipped the key over her head.
And for the first time in a long time, she stopped trying to carry her past like a burden.
She wore it like a reminder:
She was loved.
She was home.