Ink || h.s [sequel to grapite]

Chapter 1

Ink

Chapter 1

It surprises me that no matter how long you go on a journey for, whenever you return things are mostly the same. Everything had remained since the last time I set eyes on this place. Except for him. He had grown older, maturer and he had moved on now. But I hadn't. I never had.

All those years that I spent in the American heat, studying a passion that I had held since the day I first picked up a pencil. He'd never strayed too far from my mind. Just when I thought I'd forgotten about him, he would reappear to prove me wrong.

For the first few months he tried to contact me in anyway possible. Call, text, social media. Out of guilt, I ignored him. I figured that it would only hurt him more if I responded to his calls.

The boy that I used to know had gone. Not completely though. His hair was still curly and he still wore band t-shirts. The only difference now was that he was in a band himself and his skin was decorated with the ink of at least a thousand tattoos. He seemed as though he had it all. The fame, the fortune. He didn't need me.

I should have been relieved. I should have felt glad that he had managed to move on. Instead, I just felt empty. It felt as though I hadn't really known him at all.

The saddest feeling in the world is when somebody you loved becomes somebody you no longer know. When they put up a mask to the rest of the world and you're desperate to see through the mask. You strain your eyes to try to catch a glimpse of the person they once were, but no matter how hard you stare you fail to see underneath the façade. Then after ten forevers of trying, you give up. You are forced to assume that they are a hollow shell of their former being.

I suppose I couldn't blame him. If I were to blame anybody, it should have been myself. Except, I did blame him. He had given up on me just as much as I had given up on him. We were not innocent, nor were we guilty. I had caught myself up in the idea of a summer romance, he had caught himself up in the promise of a lifetime.

A lifetime can be a hard promise to keep. Promises are like ropes. When we make promises, we are bound by the ropes to whatever or whoever we made the promise to. If we stay true to our word, we can be released by the ropes. Like ropes, if a promise is broken or frayed in anyway, it can be hard to fix.

I'd made my promise to him when I said yes. I'd broken that promise. I'd broken those ropes. All I held in my hands were the torn ends of the ties that kept me to him.