Going Home Novel Novels & Stories

The prompt was simple—but daunting: Explain in detail where you come from and tell us if your new environment is a lot different, a little different, or just “eh.” She sat cross-legged on her bed, laptop glowing in the dim morning light, and let her fingers hover over the keys. Slowly, she began to type, describing home in vivid detail—the chipped paint on the kitchen walls, the creak of the old porch swing, the way her house was always the gathering place for half the kids in town. She wrote about the comfort in the routine: the scent of coffee and cornbread on Sundays, the sound of her brother’s laughter from the garage, the hum of motorcycles in the distance.

I glanced sideways and saw Isabella desperately trying to hide her face behind my shoulder, yet her hand clung to mine with a strength that surprised me. Amid the deafening cheers, I looked at my family in the front row. Their faces were almost ashen. In that moment, I felt no vindication or even hatred. Because at last, in this reckoning 20 years overdue, I'd taken that scarred little girl by the hand and led her home. I finally understood that home wasn't where one was born, but where the love was.

The flight from Aronespire to Dawnirabay took just an hour and a half, yet as I sat staring out the window, it felt like I was watching half my life flash before my eyes. ... The moment I stepped through the front door of my parents' house, they swarmed me with joy. "Debbie, you're back! Is your work in Aronespire finally finished?" I had never found the courage to tell them about my marriage. For years, I had masked my life there under the guise of a demanding corporate job. "Yeah, it's over. I quit and came home," I murmured, sinking into their warm hugs. Even now, I couldn't bring myself to shatter their happiness with the truth.

It's been ten years since I followed my fated mate, Grace Murphy, into the human world. Her childhood friend, Fred Williams, is dying. His one last wish? To experience marriage. Grace said yes. She told me she wanted to give her wedding to Fred. I didn't cry. I didn't fight. I just smiled, slid the ring off my finger, and handed it back to her. She brought Fred home and said she wanted to give him a home. I said, “Okay,” softly, and stepped aside—clean, neat, no fuss. She wanted to take Fred to Hawaii—the honeymoon destination I'd been dreaming about for years. I still helped her book everything, calm and composed. The day she boarded that plane, I finally answered the summons from my pack.

“All of it.” I sat on the hard shoulder of an eastern territory road forty minutes from the estate and listened to Crane tell Victor everything, and I felt the twins moving in their evening way, and I thought about Nate driving east in the dark and Levi in the passenger seat and Julian who had called instead of coming in, and I thought about the nursery with the level mobile and the diagonal walls and the drawer with the two small sets of clothes in it. I was going home. I did not know how yet. But I was going home.

Seven items from the correspondence, two from the photograph portfolio, a page from Eleanor's ledger. Eli looked at the list. Noah had marked the letter about the widow's walk. He had also marked a letter from 1903 in which Cornelius Harlow wrote to his sister: I find I am unable to imagine this place without knowing I will return to it. I believe this is what it means to have a home rather than merely a residence. Eli looked at that for a long time. Then he made his copies and thanked Gerald and walked back out into the October afternoon, the letter about home and residence in his mind, the firs along Mill Road going amber in the four o'clock light.

Trust without guarantees. And Lena had given me something no title ever had. A reason to become better than the man I had been. She looked up at me. “What are you thinking?” I smiled. “That I still have one problem.” “What?” “Your books.” She laughed. “I warned you.” “I know.” “And?” I pulled her closer. “I think I'll make room.” Her smile grew. “So will I.” And beneath the city lights, with her in my arms and no contract standing between what we felt, I finally understood what home meant. It wasn't a place. It was the person you chose to return to. And I had chosen her.

I have to find a way to go home alone, without anyone knowing. Walking in the dark under the light of the moon and stars, the wind was blowing a little hard here. My soul is half believing and half not in this world. Inside, I am filled with confusion. Until finally I arrived at a building lit by lights here. "Tomorrow morning I have to go back to the lake, so I have to see the lake somehow. If my guess is right then I am already in the world of my own novel. I have to accept this fact. I don't dare to set foot on this building, this building is the seat of respectable male and female students, noble families. I know it because I saw them all in the afternoon.

Luke came home I walk out of the gonsales beta so happy I could walk home. I went to the bus stop. What an irony in life. Soon I, a man who wouldn’t go to the corner if it wasn’t driving the imported cars that I bought with Gonzalo’s fortune. Who lived a life of luxury and tranquility? I didn’t know what it was like to work to support a family, or to sleep worried that I wouldn’t have enough money to pay all the bills. There I was, returning home by bus, because after everything I’ve lived and the things I’ve seen my father do for money, I’ve learned to value simple things. I didn't want to touch Gonzalo's money anymore because it was stained with my suffering.

I'm an avid outdoorsman, while my wife, Gabrielle Jensen, is a homebody through and through. Every time I invite her to outdoor activities like hiking, running, and swimming, she turns me down. "I hate exercising," she says. Later, someone starts an online trend of showing how lazy their girlfriend can be. I film Gabrielle being a couch potato and post it to join the trend. Everyone comments saying how she's a true lazy introvert. Then, one comment catches my eye and freezes me in place. "Isn't that the old pool queen Gabrielle Jensen? She and Caleb Fisher made quite the swimming duo back then. Their relay team brought home more than a few trophies for our school. "They were the golden