Chapter 17: Next Page

The alley was quiet, tucked between old apartment buildings with ivy crawling along their walls. The air smelled faintly of damp stone and rain that hadn’t fallen yet. Ren’s shoes scuffed against the cracked pavement as he wandered, hands stuffed deep in his jacket pockets. He hadn’t planned to come this way—his feet had taken him here before his mind could catch up.

He stopped abruptly at the foot of a narrow metal staircase spiraling upward along the side of an old building. The staircase looked ancient, rusted in places, as if no one had climbed it in years. Ivy tangled through the gaps between steps, and the railing wobbled slightly when Ren placed his hand on it.

Something about the staircase called to him. It was the kind of place people forgot existed—a little corner of the world, hidden from the rush of daily life. Ren exhaled slowly, brushing his hair from his forehead.

“Well,” he muttered to himself, “might as well see where it goes.”

With a shrug, he started to climb.

Each step creaked softly beneath his weight, the sound swallowed by the quiet hum of the city beyond the alley. As he ascended, the street noise faded, replaced by the distant whisper of the wind brushing past the walls. It felt strange, climbing toward nowhere in particular, with no plan and no idea what to expect at the top.

But for once, Ren welcomed the uncertainty.

At the last step, he pushed open a rusty gate and found himself on a rooftop. The space was small and unkempt, the cement cracked in places and overgrown with ivy spilling over the edges. A worn wooden bench sat against the far wall, its paint chipped and peeling.

Ren wandered to the edge, leaning against the metal railing. Below, the city stretched out in every direction—lights flickering in windows, cars threading through narrow streets, and people moving like tiny dots on a map. From this height, everything looked smaller, quieter.

For a moment, Ren closed his eyes, letting the cool night air wash over him. The breeze carried a hint of rain, and the sound of distant traffic buzzed gently in the background. It was peaceful here—like the rest of the world had paused, just for a moment, to catch its breath.

He needed this—space to breathe, to exist without thinking too much about what came next.

Ren sat down on the old bench, the wood groaning softly beneath him. As he leaned back, his fingers brushed against something tucked beneath the seat. Curious, he reached down and pulled out a small, dusty notebook. The cover was worn and soft from use, the pages slightly yellowed at the edges.

He opened it carefully, revealing neat, handwritten entries inside. The ink had faded in places, but the words were still legible.

October 14th
"I climbed this staircase again today. It feels like a place only I know, a little corner of the world no one else notices. I like that. It’s quiet up here."

Ren smiled to himself. He knew exactly what the writer meant—there was something special about this rooftop, like it had been waiting for someone to find it again.

He flipped to the next page.

November 3rd
"Sometimes, I think about the choices I didn’t make. The words I didn’t say. It’s funny, isn’t it? How the things we never do can feel just as real as the things we do. Like ghosts, haunting us from the corners of our mind."

Ren’s chest tightened. The words hit close to home, stirring memories he had tried to leave behind—moments he had rewound again and again, hoping to make them right, only to realize that some things couldn’t be fixed.

He ran his thumb along the edge of the page, lost in thought. The writer had captured something Ren hadn’t been able to put into words before: the weight of almosts. The choices left unmade, the things that might have been.

He flipped to another page.

December 22nd
"I keep coming back here, hoping for something to change. But maybe the point isn’t to change anything. Maybe it’s to learn how to be okay with what is."

Ren exhaled slowly, the words settling over him like a blanket. For so long, he had been trying to rewrite his story, convinced that he needed to fix everything that had gone wrong. But maybe—just maybe—it was okay to let some things be.

He turned to the final entry, the words scrawled in a looser hand, as if the writer had rushed to get them down.

March 12th
"I think I’ve finally figured it out. Life isn’t about choosing the perfect path—it’s about making peace with the paths you didn’t take. The things that almost happened, the moments that slipped through your fingers... They’re part of the story too. And that’s okay."

Ren stared at the page, the weight of the words sinking deep into his chest. For the first time, he felt a strange kind of peace—not because everything made sense, but because it didn’t have to.

He closed the notebook gently, setting it back under the bench where he had found it. It didn’t feel right to take it with him—the words belonged here, on this forgotten rooftop, waiting for someone else to find them.

Ren leaned back, letting his head rest against the bench. The sky above was darkening, clouds gathering on the horizon, but he wasn’t in a hurry to leave. He sat there for a while, breathing in the cool night air, listening to the distant hum of the city below.

Eventually, the first drops of rain began to fall, pattering softly against the cement. Ren stood, brushing off his jacket, and took one last look at the rooftop. There were no grand revelations waiting for him, no perfect answers. Just the quiet realization that he didn’t need them.

He made his way back to the staircase, the old metal groaning beneath his steps. The rain picked up as he descended, soaking the ivy and filling the cracks in the pavement below. But Ren didn’t mind. He liked the way the city smelled in the rain—fresh and clean, like the world had been given a second chance.

At the bottom of the stairs, he paused, glancing back up at the rooftop one last time. A part of him wanted to stay a little longer, but he knew it was time to move on.

Life was waiting—messy, imperfect, and full of almosts. But for the first time, Ren was okay with that.

He slipped his hands into his pockets and stepped out of the alley, the rain tapping gently against his shoulders. The streets were alive with movement—cars splashing through puddles, people hurrying under umbrellas, the distant rumble of a train passing overhead.

And as Ren walked into the heart of the city, the ticking of his watch steady against his wrist, he knew that he didn’t need to control every moment. He just needed to be present for them, however they unfolded.

Because sometimes, the beauty of life wasn’t in what happened—but in what almost did.