It was almost evening when I finally came downstairs.
The kitchen light was off, but the smell of sautéed onions and garlic filled the air. Mom stood at the stove in her apron, wooden spoon in hand, humming something that sounded like the song she always played on laundry days. It was one of those rare moments where she wasn't rushing, typing, or checking her phone between bites of toast.
"Hey," I said quietly.
She turned around. "There's my ghost child," she teased. "I thought I was going to have to leave your dinner by the door like room service."
I smiled. "Sorry. I've just been… thinking."
"Dangerous," she said, stirring the pot.
I hesitated before sitting at the counter. "Mom. Can we talk?"
She paused, looked at me. Something about her expression shifted — from teasing to serious in an instant. She nodded, set the spoon down, and joined me.
"What's going on?" she asked.
"I'm applying to college," I said, and immediately felt the breath I'd been holding rush out all at once. "I mean, for real this time. I opened the application. Wrote something. I'm doing it."
For a moment, she didn't say anything.
Then — "Where?"
"There's a school about two hours from here," I said. "Coastal Pines University."
I expected her to nod, maybe ask about tuition or majors or if Maya had anything to do with this. But instead, her face lit up with something I didn't expect.
She smiled.
Not the tired, polite smile she gave the mailman or the neighbor's kid. But a real one. Soft around the eyes. Almost… nostalgic.
"You know," she said quietly, "that's where I went."
I blinked. "Wait, seriously?"
"Yep. Class of 2001. I used to sit on the library steps every morning with a cup of vending machine coffee. Your dad thought I was ignoring him the whole first semester because I wore headphones. But I was just too nervous to talk."
My chest tightened, in that strange way it does when a parent suddenly becomes… human. Younger. Real.
"I never knew that," I said.
"I never told you because I didn't want you to feel pressured. I didn't want my path to become your obligation. But if it's something you want—" she reached across the counter and squeezed my hand "—then I couldn't be prouder."
I looked down at her hand in mine. "It's weird," I said. "For a long time, I thought you'd be disappointed if I didn't become someone bigger. Someone better."
"Zoey." Her voice was firm. "There is no 'bigger.' No 'better.' There's only what's right for you. I raised you to build your own life. Not to live mine."
I nodded. And for the first time in what felt like months, I let that truth settle deep inside my chest — like a pebble dropped into a still lake.
Later, when dinner was done and the dishes were in the sink, I went back to my room, opened my laptop, and typed the name:
Coastal Pines University.
I clicked "Begin Application."
And I began.
June 16
I carry her voice
like a tucked-away postcard
from a younger version of the woman who raised me.
She stood here too —
on the edge of something new,
something unknown.
And even though our shoes are different,
we walked the same path.
And maybe that's not a shadow.
Maybe it's a light.