My feet move over the pavement like they have a thousand times. Past the corner mansion, past the once-loved tennis courts, through the park where summers were spent. They pause next to a group of bushes, where two girls once constructed a fort with a few old tablecloths and a dishtowel. The park was new then, and the playground equipment glimmered white and blue, before the sun-faded paint was embellished with etched declarations of love and hate.

The wind stings my eyes. The park looks stale and musty. Nostalgia is lost on me. Instead I feel strangely detached. The town seems so small and tired. There is an impatient flutter in my chest, but my feet feel heavy and rooted.

I belong here, this foreign place. But only for a time.