The morning Lily left, the sky was a heavy, bruised gray.
She stood at the edge of the bus station, her single suitcase clutched in both hands, her fingers stiff with cold and nerves. The world around her blurred at the edges, too big and too loud. She felt like she was shrinking inside her own skin.
Everything she owned was packed into that one worn suitcase: a few changes of clothes, her childhood journal, some photographs she couldn't leave behind, and the letter, her mother's letter tucked safely into the front pocket of her jacket, close to her heart.
She wore her father's old hoodie, too big for her, sleeves swallowing her hands. It smelled faintly like him, like pine and something metallic and she found herself burying her face in it when the loneliness grew too sharp to bear.
The station buzzed with life, mothers wrangling toddlers, men in suits checking their watches, teenagers glued to their phones.
Her heart pounded as she stepped onto the bus, flashing her ticket at the driver, who barely glanced at her. She found an empty seat halfway down the aisle and collapsed into it, pressing her forehead to the cool glass window. And then, slowly, the bus pulled away.
Lily didn't look back.
She couldn't, because if she did, she might not have the strength to keep going.
The city she was headed to, she barely knew anything about it.
She had chosen it almost at random, with the whisper of her mother's letter: "If life ever breaks you, start over somewhere new." Somewhere no one knew her name, somewhere she could disappear and maybe someday start to rebuild.
The name had sounded soft to her ears when she whispered it aloud. Rosewood, it sounded like something out of a dream. A place where maybe she could remember how to breathe.
The bus hummed along the highway, the scenery blurring into streaks of green and gray. Fields gave way to forests, forests melted into winding towns, and each mile carried her further from the life she had known, the life that had been taken from her.
Around her, passengers slept or scrolled through their phones or spoke in hushed voices. Lily sat silently, clutching the strap of her bag, willing herself not to fall apart.
She missed them, she missed them so much she could barely breathe around it.
Her fingers brushed against the letter through the thin fabric of her jacket, grounding herself.
Start over somewhere new.
She could do this. She had to do this.
The bus made a stop at a grimy little station halfway to Rosewood.
Lily stumbled off with the others, stretching her cramped legs and blinking against the harsh fluorescent lights. Her stomach grumbled, she hadn't eaten all day, so she made her way to a vending machine near the back wall.
She dug into her wallet, pulling out a crumpled five-dollar bill. As she fumbled with the machine, she felt it: a brush against her side. Too light and too deliberate. She turned, heart spiking, but the crowd had already shifted, someone bumped into her. A man muttered an apology and moved on, Lily's hand flew to her jacket pocket.
Empty.
Her heart plummeted. She dug through her bag, but her wallet was gone.
Gone, credit cards, ID and the little cash she had.
Panic rose, thick and suffocating. She whirled around, scanning the crowd, but no one met her gaze. No one stopped. No one noticed.
Someone had stolen her wallet, and she was still hours away from Rosewood. No money, no ID, no backup plan.
For a long, terrible moment, she stood frozen there in the middle of the station, her bag spilling it's pathetic contents around her, socks, a dog-eared novel, a crumpled photograph of her parents smiling under a fireworks sky.
Her breath came in shallow, broken gasps.
She was alone, she was broke. And she was nowhere.
A voice crackled over the intercom, announcing that her bus was preparing to leave.
A countdown ticking in her head.
If she missed it, she had no way to buy another ticket.
Her body moved before her mind caught up, scooping her things into her arms, shoving them back into her bag with shaking hands, bolting for the bus door.
She stumbled up the steps just as the driver started to close them. He gave her a disgruntled look but didn't stop her.
She collapsed back into her seat, clutching her bag like it was a life raft. Her hands wouldn't stop trembling.
The bus rumbled back onto the highway, the station shrinking behind them, and Lily sat there, staring out at the darkening world, fighting the urge to scream.
This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. She was supposed to start over, not fall apart even more.
But here she was, broke, lost and alone.
The landscape outside grew darker, swallowed by night.
Lights blurred past, lonely gas stations, distant towns, nameless roads winding into the unknown.
Inside the bus, the air grew heavy with sleep. People dozed against the windows, lulled by the engine's low hum but Lily couldn't sleep.
How would she find a place to stay with no money?
How would she eat?
How could she survive like this?
Tears threatened again, but she blinked them away fiercely.
She couldn't fall apart. Not now and definitely not again.
Instead, she forced herself to think. There had to be a way.
She still had her phone, though its battery was running dangerously low, she still had the letter and the clothes on her back.
It wasn't much but it was something.
She tucked her bag closer to her chest, feeling the comforting weight of the few things, she still had.
Feeling the silent echo of her mother's voice:
"You have more strength than you know."
Maybe she didn't feel strong. Maybe she felt like she was barely holding herself together with tape and hope. But she was still here, still moving forward and that had to count for something.
Sometime after midnight, the bus pulled into Rosewood.
Lily stepped off, her legs stiff, her suitcase dragging behind her like an anchor.
The station was small, little more than a shelter and a parking lot and the town around it was quiet, wrapped in the soft hush of sleep.
The air smelled like rain and fresh earth.
A few neon signs flickered halfheartedly down the street, a diner, a pharmacy, a motel.
The motel. She eyed it warily, but she had no money to stay there, no ID to check in even if she could scrape together a few coins. Her throat tightened painfully.
She was so tired. So lost.
Every part of her ached with the need for rest, for safety, for something.
Clutching her suitcase tighter, she started walking.
The streets of Rosewood were deserted, the lamplight pooling in golden puddles on the wet pavement.
The town looked old, but not in a forgotten way.
In a stubborn, enduring way, the kind of place that had seen storms and survived them.
Maybe that was why she had come here, maybe that was the kind of place she needed to become.
She wandered for what felt like hours, her footsteps echoing on the empty sidewalks.
She passed shuttered shops with handwritten signs in the windows, a tiny library, a small park with a broken swing set creaking in the breeze.
Somewhere deep in the town, a dog barked.
Somewhere else, a train whistle blew, long and low.
Lily's exhaustion pressed down on her like a physical weight. She needed a place to rest, just for tonight.
Just until she could figure out what to do next.
At the edge of the park, she spotted a gazebo, old, but sturdy, with a roof to keep the rain off. It wasn't much but it was something.
Dragging her suitcase behind her, she climbed the steps and curled up in the corner, tucking her bag under her head like a pillow.
The letter crinkled in her jacket pocket, a soft reminder against her ribs. "Start over somewhere new."
She would.
She didn't know how.
She didn't know when.
But she would.
The night wind sang through the trees. And as Lily closed her eyes, the town of Rosewood slept around her, holding its breath for whatever came next.