Chapter 4
1246 Words
Chapter 4
It’s almost funny…
Strange how quickly everything collapsed my online life, my dignity, my self-respect, and then I slept with the one man who made me feel seen… then bolted like a coward.
A knock sounds at the door.
I freeze.
Jake?
Sophie?
Priya?
My manager?
Debt collectors?
I pad to the door and open it.
No one is there.
Just an envelope on the floor, thick and cream-colored with a wax stamp.
My name is written across the front in looping, unfamiliar handwriting:
Miss Amy Collins
Private & Confidential
Inside the envelope is a formal letter from a law firm in Cornwall.
I read it once. Then again. And by the third time, my heart’s trying to punch out of my ribs.
“We regret to inform you of the passing of Mrs. Beatrice Harland…”
“…your biological father’s paternal aunt…”
“…you are listed as the sole beneficiary…”
“…You have inherited the Harland Estate, properties, assets, journals, personal items and a house by the sea. You are requested to travel to Cornwall within fourteen days to address matters of inheritance…”
A house by the sea for me.
Why?
A strange ache builds behind my ribs, not panic, not excitement, something older. Birthdays spent staring at doors that never opened.
Social workers saying, “No known relatives,” like it was a normal sentence.
So why now?
Why her?
Why me?
A part of me wants to feel angry. Another part… Another part close to hope.
I sit on the couch, breath stuck in my throat.
Why would a woman who never met me leave me anything?
I glance down at myself, the rumpled shirt, the softness around my stomach, the body I’ve spent half my life apologizing for.
People don’t choose girls like me for anything permanent.
So what was she thinking?
What did she see in me… that I never have?
A part of me wants to throw the letter away. Another part of me tired, drowning, hopeless whispers:
Maybe this is your chance, maybe this is a reset, a real one, not the fake life on i********:, not the pity from coworkers, not men who see through you or past you.
A new place, a new town, a new start. Somewhere far from London, far from the hotel, far from Jake.
The next morning I wake up and something inside me feeling restless like London is choking me now, like staying would crush the remaining pieces of me.
Every corner of this city feels haunted now
the café where I pretended to be someone pretty online, the streets where I walked invisible, the hotel where I left a piece of myself in warm sheets and soft hands.
I can’t breathe here.
I can’t think here.
So I do something impulsive. I quit my job, delete my backup i********: again, pack one suitcase—Just one. Turned my phone off and left London without telling a soul.
I leave London. Running is the one thing I know how to do.
So I run.
The bus to Cornwall is long, winding through countryside that looks too green to be real, sheep scatter across rolling hills.
I rest my forehead against the cold window and let the landscape swallow me whole.
Maybe vanishing isn’t failure.
The further we go, the calmer I feel like someone is loosening a knot in my chest. By the time we reach the coastline, the ocean loud and wild beside us, I feel something I haven’t felt in weeks. My reflection in the window looks unfamiliar: tired eyes, tangled hair, an expression stuck somewhere between fear and hope.
Jake doesn’t know where I am.
No one does.
Cornwall is nothing like London. It's small, almost hidden, like a secret town built on old stories. Old stone buildings, narrow streets. The town looks like it grew out of the rocks themselves, the wind here is colder, carrying the distant cries of gulls and something else something ancient.
For the first time in forever, I feel small in a way that isn’t humiliating… but freeing.
The bus drops me near a stone archway.
A stretch of cliffside leading up to a huge house in the distance.
Her house, apparently.
Aunt Beatrice, a woman I never knew.
Leaving me something I can't understand.
I stand at the edge of the path, staring up at the estate on the cliff, for a second, I just let myself breathe. The wind tastes like salt instead of city exhaust. The air doesn’t feel heavy, I don't feel heavy.
My life back in London feels a million miles away from the receptionist desk, the fake smiles, the whispers about my weight, the way people always looked through me like I was background noise.
Here… no one knows me. No one knows what I look like on i********:. No one knows I ran from a man who touched me like I was worth something.
Jake.
His name brushes my mind like a bruise you forget about until you press on it.
A week ago, the idea of a man like him even noticing me was laughable.
A week ago, I was the girl who edited her face so much online she didn’t recognize herself in the mirror.
Now I’m the girl who left him asleep in a hotel bed. Maybe I should feel guilty, maybe I should feel ashamed.
But all I feel, here in this wild, endless place, is a strange flutter of possibility. Like… maybe I could become someone else. Someone braver, someone bigger than the life I kept shrinking myself to fit in.
I take another step toward the cliffside path, and the wind whips my hair across my face. I laugh, actually laugh because for once it doesn’t matter if I look ridiculous.
There’s no one here to compare me. No one is here to judge me. No one here to tell me I don’t belong.
And yet… as I start walking toward the estate, the weight of my old life tugs at me.
A black car pulls up beside me. A tall man in a gray suit steps out, holding a folder.
“Amy Collins?” he asks.
I nod, swallowing.
He gives a small bow.
“I’m Mr. Allerton. Mrs. Harland’s solicitor.
If you’ll come with me… there’s something at the house you’ll need to see before we proceed with the reading of the will.”
Something?
My stomach curls.
“What… kind of something?”
He's got a poker face. I can't even read his expression. Mr. Allerton hesitates before saying quietly:
“Something Mrs. Harland left specifically for you. A letter addressed to you with instructions.”
My stomach flips.
“Instructions?” I echo.
A letter?
For me?
“Yes, Miss Collins,” he says, opening the car door. “She wanted to make sure you read it the moment you arrived.”
Wind rushes over the cliff, whipping my hair over my face. The sea crashes loudly below, almost drowning out the lawyer’s final words.
Words that make my skin prickle:
“She wrote it before she died…
and insisted it only be opened once you arrived. She said you’d understand why.”
I don’t understand anything. But I follow him a
nyway, the cliffs looming high above us, the old estate waiting like a secret that’s finally ready to be revealed.
And just like that—
My new life begins.
- Writer
