This is it.
I take a deep breath as I push the door on my black Ford open, ignoring the butterflies in my stomach as I climb out. Leaving the doubts that were in my head in the car, I quickly slam the door shut and lock it as if they were a rabid dog in danger of escaping and infecting me.
I quickly brush a white lock of hair out of my eyes, sweeping it behind my ear. Another deep breath, I stand straight, head high and confident as I put one nervous foot in front of the other, making my way down the drive way that I’ve been eyeing up for the last hour. The crisp brown leaves shuffle and crunch together under the tread of my black worn out military boots. I look at the building before me, my eyes quickly shifting from one window to the next, not holding my gaze too long in case I’m seen staring in. My pace slows slightly as I consider turning around, walking away. But where to? I have nowhere else to go, so I decide to carry on. I’ve come this far, no turning back now.
I haven’t been here in nearly four years and yet I remembered my way back here without a second thought as to which direction to go, without a single mistake. It was as if I’d travelled this road a thousand times before. Which I had done, in my mind and in dreams. I’d travelled these roads almost every day, retracing the route over and over that it had been etched into my brain. It was as if it had been branded on with a white hot iron poker, every exact twist and turn carefully cauterised into my soul and no amount of time could ever erase it. I think I could live to the end of the world and still remember as if it was the only thing I’d ever known.