Page 71 of Chasing Hope

Thank you, Evie Ellington, for enrolling in the Denver Dispatcher Academy. Your application has been received. Please remain patient while we look over your details. We’ll be in touch shortly.

I’ve never been so nervous to hit submit in my life. I wasn’t even this much of an anxious mess submitting college applications. Now the worst is to come—waiting.

Filling out the application took me around two hours. Double- and then triple-checking every question will delay things like that. Finishing around one p.m. left me with time to busy myself, so I cleaned the apartment top to bottom. That was easy considering Matteo has kept this place spotless, so spotless in my brother’s absence that I wonder if he’s been sneaking a cleaner in here while I’m asleep, or while I was bed bound for a week.

Cleaning then led to me staring at my unopened boxes filling the hallway by my brother’s room. I’m ashamed to admit I stared at them for far too long. It felt like if I opened those boxes, I’d beunpacking more than just physical items, I’d have to face the emotional baggage that’s been crushing me.

And today is not the day for that.

Today is for new and exciting energy only.

Hence why I spun on my heel, headed downstairs, and began envisioning what I wanted my new life to look like. That’s what this is—a new beginning, one so fresh that it aches with everything I’ve lost. But sometimes, people and things have to be removed from your life to fill it with something new.

That’s how I’ve been forcing myself to look at it, at least, and what better way to map out a new life for yourself than scrolling Pinterest for hours?

Except this isn’t a two-a.m. scroll where you promise to wake up at five o’clock and suddenly take your health seriously with the ten-step routine you wrote out for yourself. This is a doom scroll that I’m likening to the question, what the fuck do I want to do with my life?

My savings are dwindling every day, despite Matteo refusing to let me contribute to anything around the apartment. When I curled into a ball and ignored life, the world unfortunately continued to spin around me, not giving me a reprieve or the break I so desperately needed.

My phone bill still arrived despite me throwing it out the window, and the internet payment that I need to transfer into Carter’s name. Then there’s the car insurance on the vehicle I haven’t driven in nearly a month, streaming services that are climbing in price, a gym membership that I also haven’t used recently, health insurance…

The reality is, I can’t live off my savings without a job for long, but something deep in my gut tells me that I’m on the right path. That perhaps all of this happened so I’d be pushed to change careers and move into a field where I’d help people every day.

Ihaveto believe that everything happens for a reason, otherwise I won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning.

Scrolling, I start a new board and save anything I see that catches my attention. Locations I want to travel to, team sports Iwant to join, hobbies I want to try. Because I don’t want to be held back anymore. I don’t want to be ninety in a retirement home looking back on my life filled with I-wish-I-did-that moments. I want to say I was scared but did it anyway.

“I can do hard things,” I murmur to myself.

That will be my life motto.

And one day, when I have kids, I want them to be able to look up to me and say I’m inspirational and how cool I am for the experiences I have had.

That is what I want.

Experiences.

Slowly but surely, I’m going to start living again.

My phone buzzes beside my laptop. A smile tugs at the corner of my lips when I see who it is. Hitting answer on the video call, I lean the phone against my laptop.

My brother’s face fills the screen a second later.

“Hey, hey, hey, mini Ellington! You finally answered!”

A laugh bubbles up my throat. My brother seems happy and drunk, incredibly drunk based on the glazed look in his eyes. “Hi big Ellington, how is Greece treating you?”

A wobbly smile is aimed my way before the phone pans behind him to show an infinity pool, sun loungers, and a view that steals my breath.

Talk about experiences.

I’m adding Greece to the list when I get off the phone.I want to travel everywhere.

“My god, Caleb, it’s fucking beautiful.”

His face comes back and I scoff, waving him off. “No, I want the beautiful view, not your hideous face.”

My brother just rolls his eyes and that’s when I hear a soft feminine chuckle in the background. Quirking a brow at him, I lower my voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “Seems it’s treating youreallywell.”