People You May Know

The Journey of Finding Yourself

A/N: This is the last official part of this story, however there is still the epilogue that should be posted in the next few days or so. Thanks for reading and sticking with this story for so long! If you want to know anything else about the story let me know. For example, alternate endings, actors I was thinking of for characters like Jensen or Merritt, the link to the soundtrack I made for the story, etc. Pretty much anything you want to know, just shoot me a message! Thanks again!

Chapter 24: The Journey of Finding Yourself

Lucas

Before I left for London I took a trip into a local bookstore near my family's apartment. I asked the shop owner working at the counter for any book recommendations that centered around people traveling the world on some sort of journey. Without a word, he proceeded to escort me to the travel section of the store stocked with maps and travel guides and thick books documenting the best types of cuisine around the world.

"I'm sorry, I should have been more clear," I said, looking at him apologetically and placing a hand over one of the European travel guides. "I meant a novel. A novel about a man or a woman seeking to discover something and doing everything in their power to find it, no matter how long it takes. A character on a journey. A character looking to start over and grow into who they're meant to be."

"Ah," he murmured, turning away from the shelves of books to raise his eyebrows at me knowingly. "You want to do a little research on the journey of self discovery and rejuvenation."

"I'm not sure what you mean," I frowned, shaking my head at him in confusion as he led me back to the front of the store.

"Every book I've read about a man traveling the world in hopes of completing their mission -whatever that may be- always turns out to be a matter of discovering, or sometimes reinventing, themselves," he explained, rearranging the trinkets set up on the top of the counter and quickly glancing up to meet my gaze.

"What if that was my goal all along," I admitted, twisting my hands together and bending down to pick up a bookmark that had flown onto the floor when he moved one of the display cases. "What if I'm seeking to find the person who I used to be, but also the person I'm meant to become. Will I find something else along the way?"

"No man takes a journey of any kind without returning home with an unintentional discovery," his lips curled into a smirk as he turned back around to look up at me. "In fact - I think I have just the book for you, son. It might not be exactly what you're expecting, but I think you'll find it's exactly what you need."

Reaching behind the counter, he pulled out a small, beat-up copy of a novel that looked as though it had gotten a lot of attention in its lifetime. He placed it in a bag without revealing the title to me and held it out for me to take.

"Thank you," I told him, reaching into my back pocket to pull out my wallet.

"I hope you find what you're looking for," he gently pushed my wallet away and I smiled at him gratefully. "Or rather, who you're looking for."

"Me too," I said in almost a whisper.

Clutching the bag in my hand, I turned on my heel to push through the rickety door at the front of the bookstore. I didn't remove the book from the bag until I got on the plane that same night. I recognized the title immediately, but was taken aback by the shop owner's choice. Yet, another part of me wasn't the least bit surprised that the one book that a total stranger had chosen for me to read in an effort to discover myself again just so happened to be the one book in the entire world that Riley Matthews had chosen to be her favorite.

--

I never read the book. In fact, for my first month in London, it sat on the desk in my dorm room at the boarding school that my mother organized for me to attend and it remained sitting there unopened for the next month. And the next. And the next. And the longer it sat there untouched, the more miserable I became. The book was there as a reminder that I could choose to rediscover myself at any time, but I simply didn't care enough to do so.