I bought a secondhand hatchback and, while giving the interior a onceover, discovered a diary tucked under the passenger seat.
Are you having a joke, Alex? Seriously? The whole department spent three months on that project and now youre saying the concept has changed?
Alex stood in the bosss office, fists clenched until his knuckles turned white. Oliver Hart, a stocky man with a perpetually sour expression, didnt even glance up from his paperwork.
Alex, cut the drama. Concepts evolve. The client can change their mind and we have to roll with it. This is business, not a hobby club.
Roll with it? Thats not rolling, thats tearing everything down and starting from scratch! All the calculations, the paperworkthrown into the bin? People lost sleep over this!
They got paid for the overtime. If anyones unhappy, HR works nine to five. You can leave now; Im not holding you.
Alex turned on his heel, slammed the door so hard the glass in the frame rang, and walked past colleagues who gave him sympathetic looks. He snatched his coat from the desk and stepped into the damp October air. Enough, drummed in his temples. Enough. He walked without caring about the route, angry at the boss, the client, the whole world. He was sick of being at the mercy of other peoples whims, of the unreliable city bus schedule, of everything. He needed something of his own. Small, but his. Even a sliver of personal space where nobody could stick their nose in with a new concept.
That thought led him to the sprawling car market on the edge of town. He drifted between rows of used cars, not really knowing what he was looking for. Shiny foreign saloons rubbed shoulders with battered veterans of British motoring. Then he saw it: a modest, cherryred Kia, spotless on the outside, about seven or eight years old, but looking as if itd been loved.
Interested? said a friendly salesman, a thirtysomething with a grin. Great choice. One previous owner, driven gently, mainly for work. Mileage is genuine, never a cigarette in the cabin.
Alex circled the car, peeked inside. Clean, but not sterile. You could feel that people had actually lived there, not just shuttled from point A to point B. He slipped into the drivers seat, rested his hands on the cool plastic, and for the first time that day felt the tension melt away.
Ill take it, he said, surprising himself with the certainty.
The paperwork took a couple of hours. Soon he was cruising through the twilight streets in his very own car. His own. The word warmed his chest. He turned on the radio, cracked a window, let the chilly breeze in. Life suddenly didnt look quite so bleak.
He parked the hatchback in the driveway of his old council flat, sat there for ages, soaking up the new feeling. Then he decided the car needed a proper clean, no trace of its former owner. He hit the 24hour depot, bought carcleaning fluid, rags, a vacuum, and got back to work.
He polished everything to a shine: the dashboard, the door panels, the windows. When he reached the area beneath the seats, his hand brushed something hard. He pulled out a small notebook with a darkblue cover. A diary.
Alex flipped it open, feeling oddly invasive. It was someone elses life, someone elses secrets. He almost tossed it onto the back seat and walked away, but a neat, tidy script on the first page caught his eye. Poppy. Just a name. He turned the page.
12March.
Vlad shouted again today because I forgot his favourite yogurt. Sometimes I feel like Im living on a powder keg one wrong step, one misplaced word and it all blows up. Then he comes over, hugs me, says he loves me, that its just a rough day. I believe him, or I pretend to. This cherryred little Kia is my sole escape. I turned the music up and drove wherever the road took me. Just me and the road, and no one screaming.
Alex set the diary down. He could almost see Poppy behind the wheel, sad eyes, fleeing domestic storms. He kept reading.
2April.
Another fight. This time over my job. He says proper women stay at home and bake pies. I dont want to bake pies. I love my work, the numbers, the reports. I want to feel useful beyond the kitchen. He cant understand that. He threatened to go straight to my boss if I didnt quit. Humiliating. That evening I went to the Old Park Café, sat alone, sipped coffee and watched the rain. So peaceful there, and the pastries were delicious.
Alexs mind drifted to the Old Park Café. He knew it; it was a cosy little place just a short walk from his flat, big windows, warm light. He imagined Poppy there, alone, watching the droplets race down the glass.
The days that followed blurred together. By day he was at the office, arguing with Oliver, by night he was devouring the diary. He learned Poppy loved autumn, jazz, and Remarques novels. She dreamed of learning to paint, but Vlad dismissed it as childish scribbling. Her best friend, Sophie, was the one she could talk to for hours on the phone.
18May.
Good day today. Vlads away on a business trip. The silence is bliss. Sophie dropped by, we bought wine and fruit and stayed up chatting till midnight, laughing like we were teenagers again. She says I should leave him. Poppy, hell eat you up, youre fading fast. I know shes right. But where would I go? No parents, his flat is his. Scary to start from zero at thirtyfive. Sophie says age doesnt matter, its just the beginning. Easy for her to say shes got a husband whos a banker.
Alex felt the weight of that fear. He was fortytwo, and the thought of a radical change made his knees wobble. He, too, lived on a familiar track: workhome, occasional meetups with his mate Sam. And now, this car and this diary.
On Saturday he could no longer hold it in and went to the Old Park Café. He took a seat by the window, ordered a coffee and a slice of cake the very one Poppy seemed to love. He stared at it, trying to picture her. Sometimes a tall blonde, sometimes a petite brunette, but always those sad eyes.
He kept turning the pages; the entries grew darker.
9July.
He raised his hand at me for the first time. Because I talked to Sophie on the phone instead of him when he called. Just a slap, but it felt like he broke something inside me, not on my face but in my soul. I spent the whole night in the car in the driveway, unable to go back inside. I watched his windows flicker on and off. He was probably looking for me, or maybe not. I dont know. It was terrifying and lonely. If it werent for my little cherryred escape, I think Id have lost my mind.
Alex set the diary down, his chest tightening with injustice. He wanted to track down that Vlad and He didnt know what to do, only that he wanted to protect her. The woman hed never met.
That evening Sam rang.
Alex, whereve you vanished to? Fishing weekend?
Hey, Sam. Too many things on my plate.
What things? You havent even taken a holiday. Whats this mystery? Bought a kite and flown off?
Alex chuckled.
Almost. Listen, theres something
He told Sam about the car, the diary, Poppy. Sam listened in silence.
Youve really got yourself into someone elses story, havent you? Whats the point?
I dont know. I just feel sorry for her.
Feel sorry for him. That was ages ago. Shes probably married a millionaire by now and forgotten about that Vlad. And youre sitting here, grieving for a stranger. Toss that notebook.
I cant, Alex admitted.
Then keep it. Just dont go mad in a mental hospital. Call if you need anything.
The chat didnt sober him up. If anything, it made him want to finish the diary, find out how it ended.
The entries grew shorter, more broken. Poppy was clearly at her limit.
1September.
Summers over. So is my patience. He smashed the vase Mom gave me the last thing I had left of her. He called it bland and said it clashed with his designer décor. I gathered the shards and realised that was it. The end. I cant stay.
15September.
Plotting my escape like a spy thriller. Funny and frightening. Sophie will let me crash at her flat for a while. Im slowly moving my books, a couple of sweaters, some makeup the valuables. Vlad doesnt notice; hes too busy with himself. Ive found an eveningwatercolour class that starts in October. Maybe thats a sign?
28September.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow Im gone. Hes off on a twoday conference, so Ill have time to grab the rest of my things and leave. Ive handed in my resignation. New life ahead. Ill buy an easel, paints, and start painting autumn yellow leaves, grey skies, and my cherryred car in the rain. Its my freedom symbol. Scary as hell. What if it doesnt work? What if he finds me? Staying is scarier.
That was the last entry. Alex turned the page; it was blank. So was the next. The diary simply ended.
He sat in the quiet of his tiny kitchen, wondering what had become of her. Had she managed to get away? Did Sophie find a flat? Had she started painting? Dozens of questions buzzed around his head. It felt like hed watched a series to the very last episode, only for the finale to be cut.
He reread the final pages over and over, then finally noticed something hed missed. Between the last entries a tiny, folded receipt lay hidden. A receipt from The Artist shop on Market Street, dated 29September. It listed: watercolour set, brushes, sketchpaper, a small tabletop easel.
So shed bought them after all. She was preparing.
Alex looked at the date. The diary was a year old. A whole year had passed.
What now? He could try to find her, but how? Just Poppy, no surname. Only a friend named Sophie. Little to go on. And why? To disrupt her new life? To remind her of the past? He set the diary aside.
A week went by. He went to work, argued with Oliver, returned home. Yet everything seemed a shade richer. He started noticing little things: sunlight glittering in puddles, the way ashtrees turned golden, the baristas smile at the café. He felt as if he were seeing the world through Poppys eyes, the very woman whod craved a simple, ordinary life.
One evening he was aimlessly scrolling the net when an announcement caught his eye: Autumn Vernissage Emerging Artists of Manchester. Among the participants was a name: Poppy Hart. He clicked, and a modest online gallery opened. Among landscapes, stilllives, and portraits, there was a small watercolour of a cherryred Kia parked under an autumn rain on a quiet lane. The brushwork was alive, a touch melancholic yet hopeful.
He smiled. Shed made it. Shed left. Shed painted. Shed lived.
He found Poppy Harts social profile. The avatar showed a smiling woman in her midthirties, short hair, bright eyes. She stood before a wall of her paintings, no trace of the frightened woman from the diary. Her feed was filled with exhibition photos, snapshots of her cat, quick sketches of city streets. No Vlad. No pain. Just a calm, artfilled life.
Alex felt a huge weight lift. He didnt message her, didnt add him as a friend. Why bother? Her story was complete, happy even. He simply closed the tab.
He picked up the diary again. It was no longer a collection of strangers secrets but a testament to courage that its never too late to change everything.
The next day, after work, Alex stopped at The Artist shop, the same one on the receipt. He roamed the aisles, bought a modest canvas and a set of oil paints. Hed never painted before, but a sudden urge to try seized him.
Back home he set the canvas on his kitchen table, squeezed bright colours onto a palette, and lifted a brush. He had no idea what would emerge perhaps a ruined canvas, perhaps the start of his own story, sparked by the voice of a woman hed never met, whose diary hed found under the seat of a cherryred car.
He looked out the window as rain started again. Everyone has their own road, their own autumn. Sometimes you have to stumble onto someone elses diary to find the direction you were looking for.
