The Road Not Taken Novels & Stories

My chest tightened as I watched Flora walk away. Then, I straightened my outfit and went to my mother's company. That afternoon, I had plans with a few classmates to go back to my previous school and visit our teacher. While we were talking, I happened to scroll past a new post from Sean on his social media. "Walking around campus with my love again feels like I'm being given a second chance to clear my regrets for not being with her during senior high." When I saw the familiar background, my heart skipped a beat, and I left in a hurry.

his eyes full of tenderness, contentment, devotion. Cassian, Cassian. A disciplined heir like you was always meant for a gentle, obedient, well‑bred lady. If you lifted the veil today and found out the bride had been switched... you’d probably be even happier. The driver asked, “Miss, where to?” I smiled. He walks toward his family's honor. I ride toward my city of freedom. In the end, we take our separate roads.

Then I sing. “Walking alone on a silent road Did not know where my heart would go Carrying pieces I could not mend Thought the night would never end Then you stood there without a sound Like the sun on frozen ground Did not ask, did not try to own But somehow felt like home I do not know what this feeling is Soft as air, deep as this But when you smile, the world feels right Like I found my way through night…” My voice trembles slightly, but I keep going. “Maybe it is not love, not yet

I followed it. I crossed the road, and the downhill was empty, deserted, and seemed darker than the road that carried me over. As I was thinking about going back, I noticed that the cat was slowly making its way into one of the alleys. I thought I'd take it and take it off, I walked down with quick steps. Walking on the empty , desolate road made me feel like walking in the misty void inside my mind.

Or the way he hasn't looked at me when he said goodbye. The road curved sharply about fifteen minutes in. And then I saw it. A massive pine lay sprawled across the narrow road, its roots torn from the earth, branches tangled and heavy with snow. It hadnt fallen gently. It had crashed, blocking the entire path like a final decision. I stopped the car and got out, boots sinking into slush as I approached it. There was no way around. No detour. No amount of careful driving would fix this. It would take days– maybe even longer to clear.

Ten acceptances. Forty days. And two people sitting on a thinking rock in the dark, holding on, the edge of a road stretching out ahead of them into whatever came next. Not a cliff. A road. Always, from now on. A road.

Then he limps forward and falls into step at my side. Two broken things walking east. One child who commands death. One man who should already be dead. The road stretches on. And for the first time since the estate burned, I don’t feel quite so alone.

The letters were neat and permanent. I stood under the sunlight, yet I felt like a rat that belonged in the shadows. I felt small and ashamed, like a person with no identity I could admit out loud. I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat and answered quietly, “Just a distant relative.” The old man nodded. “That makes sense. If you were close family, there is no way you would have missed the memorial ceremony Mr. Ferguson held three years ago.” “You should have seen it. The whole thing was grand. Mr. Ferguson organized a private memorial for his parents and invited relatives, friends, and many important business people.”

Just a thin black road drawn across a washed-out background, turning and turning through blank space. At the end of the road, a single point pulsed. WAYCROSS ACADEMY. Amelia stared until her eyes began to ache. The map shifted. Not zoomed. Not refreshed. Shifted. The road redrew itself while she watched, sliding away from streets she knew and replacing them with others that did not exist. A route formed from her house to the pulsing point, though the distance number in the corner flickered between three hours, forty-eight minutes, and a symbol that looked like a circle cut through by a line.

I took the Hollow Road. I’d like to say I had a clever, calculated reason. The truth is simply that the sky came down low and heavy with grey clouds at dawn, sitting over the northern pass like a thick lid. I had forty-one coins, a single loaf of bread, and eighteen straight hours of sleeplessness weighing me down—and the shorter road was the shorter road.