It started with the small things, smiling back at strangers who offered me a grin, giving the few pennies I had in my pockets to the homeless man and his dog outside my apartment block. They weren’t big or extravagant but it made me feel good. A weird kind of good, the kind of good that warms your heart and makes everything you’ve ever done wrong in your life seem forgivable. As if for a minute you can run from the past that haunts you like an enraged ghoul. Maybe, just maybe change is real. Maybe the coldness in my shallow heart could warm over after all. I know I have a bad reputation, that the people in my town think of me as a stingy, arrogant thief. But what if I don’t want to be a bad thought, the kind that makes you scowl in annoyance. I want to be good, I really do. Sometimes I notice the looks people give me, their eyes rolling so far back you could assume they’ve gotten stuck. But, people can change, right?

I can change, can’t I?