He’d bought a secondhand car and, while giving the interior a onceover, discovered a slim notebook tucked under the passenger seat.
Are you kidding me, Alex? the note began. Seriously? The whole department spent three months on this project and youre saying the concept has changed?
Alex Turner stood in the managers office, fists clenched until the knuckles turned white. Graham Whitaker, a broadshouldered man with a perpetually sour expression, didnt even glance up from his paperwork.
Alex, drop the theatrics, Graham said. The brief changed. The client can rethink their brief. We have to adapt. This is business, not a hobby club.
Adapt? Thats not adapting, thats ripping the whole thing up and starting from scratch! All the calculations, the documentationgone? People lost sleep over this!
We paid the nightshift rates. If anyones unhappy, HR is open 9to6. You can leave now. Im not holding you.
Alex turned without a word, slammed the door and the glass in the frame rang like a bell. He stalked past colleagues offering sympathetic looks, snatched his jacket, and burst into the damp October air. Enough, throbbed in his temples. Enough. He walked, mind a storm of fury toward his boss, the client, the whole world. He was tired of being at the mercy of someone elses whims, of the timetable of a cramped bus, of everything. He wanted something of his owntiny, but his. A sliver of personal space where no one could shove in a new concept.
That thought led him to the sprawling usedcar market on the outskirts of London. He drifted among rows of battered vehicles, halfseeing what he was looking for. Gleaming foreign hatchbacks stood beside battered veterans of the British motor industry. Then he saw hera modest, cherryred Kia, spotless on the outside, about seven or eight years old, but lovingly maintained.
Looking for something? a salesman, a friendly chap in his thirties, called out. Great choice. One previous owner, driven carefully, used for work and home. Genuine mileage, no smoking inside.
Alex circled the car, peered into the cabin. It was clean but not sterile; you could feel the life that had once filled it. He slipped into the drivers seat, hands on the cool plastic, and, for the first time that day, felt a piece of tension melt away.
Ill take it, he said, surprising himself with the certainty in his voice.
The paperwork took a couple of hours. Soon he was cruising through the twilight streets in his own car, the word own warm in his chest. He cranked the radio, rolled down the window, letting the chilly breeze rush in. For a moment life didnt seem so bleak.
He parked in the gravel driveway of his old council flat, sat inside the car for a long spell, letting the new feeling settle. Then he decided the cabin needed a proper clean, a fresh start free of any trace of the previous owner. He bought car polish, cloths, a vacuum from the 24hour Tesco, and went back to the Kia.
He scrubbed every surface to a shine: dashboard, door panels, windows. When he reached the space beneath the front seat, his hand brushed something hard. He pulled out a small, darkblue notebook. A diary.
Alex turned it over, feeling awkward, as if he were holding a strangers secrets. He could have tossed it onto the back seat and forgotten it, but a quiet curiosity stopped him. The first page bore a neat, tiny script: Blythe. Just a name. He opened it.
12March.
Victor shouted again today. Over something trivialforgot to buy his favourite yoghurt. Sometimes I feel Im living on a powder keg. One wrong step, one misplaced wordboom. Then he comes over, hugs me, says he loves me, says the day was hard. I believe him, or I pretend to. This cherryred little car is my only escape. I turned the radio up and drove wherever the road took me. Just me and the road. No one yelling.
Alex set the diary aside, a knot forming in his gut. He could almost see Blythe behind the wheel, eyes dim, fleeing the storms at home. He kept reading.
2April.
Another fight. This time about my job. He hates that I stay late. Proper women stay at home and bake pies, he said. I dont want to bake pies. I love my work, the numbers, the reports. I want to feel needed beyond the kitchen. He cant see that. He threatened to go to my boss if I dont quit. Humiliating. I left for The Old Park Café, sat alone, drank coffee, watched the rain. It was peaceful. The cakes were lovely.
Alexs mind drifted to The Old Park Café, a cosy spot not far from his flat, big windows framing the street. He imagined Blythe at a table, watching raindrops race down the glass.
The days that followed blurred. Daylight brought work and endless rows with Graham; evenings he read the diary. He learned Blythe loved autumn, jazz, and Remarque. She wanted to learn to paint, but Victor dismissed it as childish scribbling. Her close friend Molly could talk for hours on the phone.
18May.
Victor was away on business. Silencebliss. Molly called, we bought wine and fruit, stayed up till midnight laughing like teenagers. She says I should leave him. Blythe, hell swallow you whole, youre fading fast. I know shes right. But where would I go? No parents, his flat is my home. Im thirtyfive. Molly says age isnt a barrier, its a new start. Easy for her to sayshes got a husband whos a banker.
Alex sighed. He understood that dread. He was fortytwo, and the thought of a radical change made his skin prickle. He lived in a familiar groove: workhome, occasional meetups with his mate Sam. Now everything hinged on a car and a diary.
On Saturday he couldnt hold it in any longer. He went to The Old Park, took a window seat, ordered coffee and a slice of cakethe same one Blythe had loved. He stared, trying to picture her. Sometimes a tall blonde, sometimes a petite brunette, but always those sorrowful eyes.
He kept reading. The entries grew darker.
9July.
He raised his hand on me for the first time. Because I talked to Molly on the phone instead of him when he called. Just a slap, but it cracked something inside me. Not on my face, but in my soul. I spent the night in the car in the driveway, couldnt go back inside. The windows flickered, lights dimming and brightening. He was probably looking for me, or maybe not. It was terrifying and lonely. If it werent for my cherryred haven, I think I would have lost it.
Alex closed the diary, a surge of injustice tightening his chest. He wanted to find Victor and He didnt know what to do, only that he needed to protect hera woman hed never met.
That evening Sam rang.
Oi, Alex, whereve you vanished to? Gone fishing for the weekend?
Hey Sam, cant talk. Too much on my plate.
What plate? You havent taken a holiday. Whats with the mystery? Bought a bungalow and disappeared?
Alex managed a chuckle.
Almost. Listen, its a bit of a story
He told Sam about the car, the diary, Blythe. Sam listened in silence.
Bloody hell, Sam finally said. Youve stuck your nose into someone elses life. Whats it doing you good?
I dont know. Just feel sorry for her.
Feel sorry for Victor. This was ages ago. Shes probably married a millionaire by now and forgotten about that Victor. And youre sitting there, pining for a ghost. Throw the notebook out.
I cant, Alex admitted.
Then do what you can. Dont go off the rails. Call if you need anything.
Sams words didnt sober him up; they only drove him to finish the diary.
The entries grew terse, jagged, as if Blythe were at her breaking point.
1September.
Summers over, and so is my patience. He smashed the vase Mom gave methe last thing I had left from her. Said it was tasteless and ruined his designer décor. I collected the shards and realised thats it. Its the end. I cant stay. I must leave.
15September.
Planning my escape like a spy thriller. Silly and scary. Molly will let me crash at her flat for a while. Im moving my books, a couple of sweaters, cosmeticseverything precious. Victor doesnt notice; hes too wrapped up in himself. Ive found a watercolor course Ive always wanted. Starts in October. Maybe its a sign?
28September.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow Im gone. Hes off a twoday conference. Ill have the chance to clear out the rest of my things and disappear. Ive handed in my resignation. New life ahead. Ill buy an easel, paints, and paint the autumngolden leaves, grey sky, my cherryred car in the rain. My symbol of freedom. It terrifies me to the bone. What if it doesnt work? What if he finds me? Staying is worse.
That was the last entry. Alex turned the page. Blank. The next page blank. And so it went to the end. The diary simply stopped.
He sat in the quiet of his tiny kitchen, wondering what had become of Blythe. Had Molly find a flat for her? Had she started painting? Dozens of questions swirled. It felt like hed watched a series to its final episode, only for the ending to be cut.
He reread the final pages, and then spotted something hed missed. Between the last entries lay a tiny, folded receipt. It was from The Artists Supply on Mile Street. Date: 29September. Listed: watercolor set, brushes, paper, a small tabletop easel. She had bought them. She was preparing.
The diary was from the previous yearexactly one year ago.
What now? He could try to find her. But how? Blythe, no surname. Only a friend named Molly. Little to go on. And why? To disrupt a new life she might have built? To remind her of the past?
He set the diary aside. A week passed. He went to work, argued with Graham, drove home. Yet the world seemed larger, richer. He noticed the way sunlight caught puddles, how maple leaves turned amber, how the barista at the corner café smiled. He was seeing through Blythes eyes, the woman who longed for an ordinary, simple life.
One evening, idly scrolling through news, an announcement caught his eye: Autumn VernissageEmerging Artists of London. Among the participants, a name: Blythe Walker. He clicked. A modest gallery of works opened. Among landscapes, stilllifes, portraits, a small watercolor of a cherryred Kia parked under an autumn drizzle on a quiet lane. The painting breathed melancholy and hope.
He stared, a smile breaking across his face. She had made it. She had left. She painted. She lived.
He tracked down Blythe Walkers social profile. The avatar showed a thirtyfiveyearold woman with a short bob and bright eyes, standing amid her canvases. No Victor, no painjust exhibitions, photos of her cat, sketches of city streets. A quiet, contented life.
Relief flooded Alex. He didnt message her, didnt send a friend request. Her story had reached its own conclusion, and she seemed happy. He simply closed the tab.
He lifted the diary again, feeling its weight not as a bundle of secrets but as a testament to couragethe proof that its never too late to change everything.
The next day, after work, Alex went to The Artists Supply. He lingered between the aisles, then bought a modest canvas and a set of oil paints. Hed never painted before, but a sudden urge pushed him to try.
Back home he set the canvas on his kitchen table, squeezed bright colours onto a palette, and took the brush. He had no idea what would emergemaybe a ruined canvas, maybe the start of his own story, sparked by the voice of a stranger hed found under a car seat.
Rain began to patter against the window. Everyone has their own road, their own autumn. Sometimes you have to stumble upon someone elses to discover the path thats truly yours.
