Second Chance

I left the house at midnight.

The only sound was my bag hitting the ground outside my bedroom window, and the consistent ticking of the clock, abandoned on the dresser.

The stars shone boldly, unafraid, in the velvet black sky above me, and a single weak streetlight glowing anaemically at the end of the street was the only other light I could see.

The damp grass squeaked under my sneakers as I walked away from the house I had known since childhood – but I didn’t look back; couldn’t, or I’d risk a change of heart – until I reached the circle of light under the lamp.

Then I turned, took one last look at the house, which seemed so small and unimportant from here, the beginning of the rest of my life – though I knew that if I thought back to the memories built up over the last seventeen years, that I would know better.

But I couldn’t allow myself to think too hard on it, couldn’t allow the creeping uncertainty to make me doubt the truth in the words of the short note I had written moments before;

Mother, father,
I’ve done the best I can to make you realize this is my life.
I hope you understand, I’m not angry.
I’m just saying sometimes goodbye is a second chance.

I closed my eyes, saying goodbye to everything I’d known, and turned my back on it.

Then I left; walking at first, then running, as I kept the promise I had made to myself.

Tomorrow, my new life would begin; tomorrow, I would have my second chance.