Waiting for Dawn

Chapter Three

An hour later, Rebecca stepped out of the office, her expression blank with disbelief, as though her body had moved faster than her mind could keep up. The city rushed around her, but to her, the sounds seemed quieter. Muffled. Distant.

She walked slowly back to the parking lot, the weight of everything that had just happened still catching up to her.

As she neared the block where she’d parked, her eyes drifted instinctively to the window. And there it was. Still there. The same comforter she had passed by so many times. The one she’d spoken to like a friend. The one she had almost missed this morning. The one that had kept giving her hope when she had nothing else to hold on to.

This time, she didn’t hesitate.

Without a second thought, Rebecca stepped inside the shop. The bell above the door chimed softly, welcoming her into the calm hush of the space. The clerk looked up, smiling knowingly, as if she’d been expecting her.

“I’d like to buy the comforter in the window,” Rebecca said.

“I’m glad you finally came in for it,” the clerk said and walked over to the display to pick up the comforter. “I’ve seen you looking at it for weeks now, talking to it, like it was sharing secrets only you could hear.”

She picked up a transparent wrapping package to bundle up the comforter. “You know, people asked about it. Quite a few, actually. But every time, I offered them a similar one instead. I don’t know why. I just had this feeling it wasn’t meant for anyone else. I couldn’t explain it. I told my manager I’d swap it out next month but I kept stalling.”

She smiled softly while initiating the sale transaction. “I couldn’t have held on for longer though. This is the last one I have now. And I was right, wasn’t I? This was finally meant only for you.”

Hearing this, all the tension Rebecca had held in for so long finally broke. Tears began to fall, quiet at first, then unstoppable tears.  

“I can’t tell you how much your kind gesture means to me,” she said through sobs, her voice cracking.

“Today, I finally got what I’d been waiting for, and it’s all thanks to this. This comforter gave me hope when everything felt dark. It was my sign to keep going.”

The woman handed over the wrapped up comforter along with a box of tissues.

“It’s finally yours,” she said with a kind smile.

Rebecca ran her fingers over the fabric. It was even softer than she visualized. The rainbow colours dyed into the fabric seemed to shimmer under the warm light, a spectrum of quiet joy.

She carried it back to her car, sniffling while holding it against her chest as if it were something fragile and rare.

The fabric was plush, cloud-like, warm against her skin.

And as she walked wrapped in a swirl of rainbow colours and sunlight, Rebecca felt, perhaps for the first time in a very long time, completely light.

Like something inside her had finally let go.