Wanderlust

There is always a time in someone’s life where the need to escape is a feeling that is entirely too consuming. The need to become someone that you are, but aren’t at the same time takes over a spot in your heart that it’s impossible to get rid of. The expectations that other people put on your shoulders can suddenly seem to weigh down on you so much that the only option you have is to escape.

But sometimes, there’s nothing you can do to quench your desire to escape to somewhere else. Obligations keep you in place, both physically and mentally. Obligations that you might only perceive to be there or they might be stuck to you by family, friends or total strangers. But the strongest obligations are always those that you place on yourself.

Ashlyn Rogers knew how bad obligations could keep you in place. But she also knew that the want to escape would eventually overtake the obligations that held her in place. Or maybe she would be stuck in that town forever. That wasn’t exactly a pleasing though in her mind. Although, it would be her fault if she were to end up stuck in Wells, New York forever. It would be a punishment fitting her crime, though. Not that anyone else would ever agree that it was a crime.

She didn’t know how many travel magazines she subscribed to. Probably more than any other 21 year old on the planet. Definitely more than any person in Wells. Considering that Wells only included about another 750 people. All of whom knew everything about everyone else within in the city limits. It was both a positive and a negative aspect of a small town. As much as she complained about it, she would not have complained at all about the fact that everyone in her town. From Mary and Joe who ran the sub shop on the corner to Dr. Jessup who ran the only clinic, for both humans and animals, for miles and miles, Ashlyn couldn’t even bring it in her to dislike any of them.

Bordering nicely on Lake Algonquin, Wells brought a few vacationers looking for a quiet, secluded spot to get away from it all. Wells was your average small town in many ways. There was no way to have a secret, unless you kept it to only yourself. And even then it might make its way out into the community. But Ashlyn had learned at a young age how to hide things and she was still doing a very good job of that 21 years later.

But everyone knew that Ashlyn would one day escape the grasp of Wells, or at least they hoped she would. And everyone knew of the list that she kept on the desk at the shop of the places she wanted to go. Some as obscure as Madagascar to places like London and Los Angeles. She wanted to see them all, every last site that the world had to offer her. She would bring back a little piece of each place to leave for Amanda too.

Amanda was Ashlyn’s older sister by three years. And while Ashlyn was bound to be a traveler, Amanda was always going to be the one who gave everything back by becoming a teacher or a lawyer or a doctor. She had the brains to go much further than her sister ever would have. And everyone knew that, even Ashlyn openly admitted it. But that had all changed in the blink of an eye. But no one ever blamed Ash, not even Mandy herself. The only person who did was Ashlyn herself but there was not a soul in town that knew that. Not even her parents.

She was outwardly a normal 21 year old. Someone teetering on the slim edge between being a girl and being a woman. No one would have ever guessed that the reasons that she had behind staying in Wells were only in her own head. Most just thought that she loved the small town and couldn’t bring herself to leave it anymore. Sometimes it was nice to be stuck in a town where everyone was decidedly ignorant about anything other than what was found on the surface.

But it wasn’t as though Ashlyn hated her life or anything. She just blamed herself for a lot of past mistakes. Mistakes that had caused people in her life a lot of pain and continued suffering. But she knew that one day she would finally come to terms with all of it and be able to escape from Wells. For now, she was content being there and dealing with the same routine. But routines got boring easily. And sometimes, Wells needed a little bit of a shakeup.

He was done.

He was finally done.

He had been playing the same character for eight long years in a set of movies that were universally known. People knew his name everywhere. It was on the tip of everyone’s tongue. He had paparazzi following him to the grocery store and agents breathing down his neck to have him take on even more rolls.

And he hated it.

All Tom Felton wanted to do was escape for a while. He didn’t want to beDraco Malfoy anymore. He was bored of being Harry Potter’s enemy. He wanted to be himself. He wanted to run away and take care of what was next on his plate.

He had seen hundreds of countries, some big and some small. And every county loved him the same. But all he wanted was to go somewhere that no one knew him. He wanted to find a small town and hide for a while, become a normal person and not a celebrity any longer. He would go back to it, of course, some day. But for now he was sick of being in the spotlight. Sometimes, not having a private life could be a real pain in the ass. Every single thing that he did was under a microscope or in a magazine. He couldn’t be seen out in public with a girl without her being a prospective girlfriend. Didn’t these people have families and lives that they could indulge themselves in? Was he really that important to everyone that he be followed around like a small child who might get into trouble somehow? Every damn person with a camera was waiting for him to make a mistake that would cause a huge scandal and he was downright sick of it.

England had been his home for his whole life, even while he was shooting the movies. But he wanted a change of pace. Something that was new and different. And while he had been throwing around the idea of writing and recording an album for a long time, he had finally made his decision as he walked the red carpet for the premiere of the final Harry Potter movie. He walked along, waving as thousands of girls screamed his name from the sidelines and flashbulbs went off with every step that he took.

And the only thing he could think of was how good it would feel to be able to have a normal life without the constant brightness of camera flashes and the sounds of preteen girls screaming his name, or his character’s name, at the top of their longs.

When he got home after a long night of partying with his cast mates, and best friends, he started looking for somewhere to hide away. He knew that he couldn’t stay in England. To him, all the cities and areas were exactly alike now that he had been around for so long. He needed to desert everything. His friends, family, country, name, etc. And it would suck for a while, but he needed this time for himself.

He knew that America would be his solace. In the US people went unknown on a daily basis. And there were plenty of small towns. Small towns that were close enough to big towns that he could get somewhere if he absolutely needed to, but still far away that they weren’t a suburb. He was ready for the life that he could lead there.

Three days of searching found him the perfect place and he had put in an application to rent a cabin on the lake. Wells, New York had that perfect look to it. It was secluded and sat directly on a lake. It had a perfect set of woods that housed a couple little cabins, one of which happened to be empty. It was the perfect place for him to lay low for a while and write an album.

He got the email two days later that told him he could have the cabin for the upcoming summer months and he had never been more excited than he was when he started to pack his bags. Wells, New York was going to be a great place to escape to, he could just feel it.