Ink | Soulmate AU | ✓

thirteen | the boy from the photograph

   I tried to gather my swirling thoughts together, without much success; I stood agape, frozen to the spot, seemingly paralysed— with exception to my brain, which wouldn't stop moving, racing, churning. The sinister silence was louder than ever, and I couldn't think of a way to break it.

   Luckily, he spoke first.

   'I guess you wonder why I'm telling you all this,' he said, on one long, loud exhale.

   He was eerie calm again now, his chest rising and falling a little too steadily as he kept staring into the middle distance. I tried to respond, but the words died in my throat. Feeling faint, I managed a tiny nod, terrified about what was to come; would he explode on me? I'd never seen this side of him before– didn't even know it existed.

   Then in an instant, he stood up on the spot and looked directly down at me, his eyes utterly hollow and yet so painfully sad. I saw him search for the right words for a moment before something snapped, visibly. Something happened. He glanced down at the floor and smirked a little. 'Why should you care? Why would you? You don't know me,' he started, looking up. 'But oh, boy, do I know you, Archie.' He flipped his hair out of his face. 'I want you to be careful, girl,' he said, his blue eyes wild. 'You will keep George safe at any cost.'

   Then, the sounds of his expensive shoes were echoing loudly around the empty room as he stormed away. So many unasked and unanswered questions danced before my watering eyes, but he was gone, and I wouldn't see him again until next week, I— I couldn't wait that long. I had to know now.

   How did he know George's name? And what did he mean, at any cost?

   Before I knew what I was doing, suddenly the Professor's desk drawers lay open as I raced through each one, desperately searching for any scrap of evidence towards who this man really was or the secrets he'd been keeping. Blood thundered in my ears as I swept a pile of paperwork from his desk top, trying to find more clues, pushing artwork and bits of scrap paper aside to no avail, and I was lightheaded as every drawer revealed nothing but paint supplies, turpentine and paperclips, useless things— until I felt a twinge of pain in my index finger, a paper cut.

   Another photograph. It showed a young man, maybe twenty. Not the same boy as in the picture my Professor had shown me earlier – that boy had been all smiles and warm energy – no, this boy looked melancholy, tormented even, as he feigned joy for the camera.

   Sadness was always so easy to see, to me anyway, no matter the mask it wore – and I saw it here. That brown floppy hair and those dull blue eyes; a familiarity danced before me for such a brief moment that I thought I must have imagined it. It was as if the picture had been drained of any colour, any love, any life. It was so deep, and so empty.

   My heard thudded mercilessly as I turned the picture over, inspecting the back, hoping for a name or a date, anything. At first I saw nothing, but looking more closely, my eyes came to rest on a delicate pencil scribble in the top left hand corner: a number, a long number— a phone number? Obviously my Professor knew this guy, and well enough to have his mobile number – but not well enough to put it anywhere safe, just shoved at the bottom of his desk drawer?

   In a rush of adrenaline and with courage I didn't know I had, my hands fumbled towards the back of my jeans, searching for my phone in the pocket. Fingers trembling, I punched in the number on the back of the photograph, totally unsure who or what to expect— but I was certainly not expecting a deafening silence, which was what I got.

   There was no answer, so I hung up the call, putting my phone away and pocketing the photo for future reference. As I turned to close the desk drawer, though, something caught my eye: it was a small book, with the word Addresses written on the front in cursive lettering. It must have been what the photo had come out of.

   Feeling unequivocally nosy, but unable to help myself, I carefully opened the book's first page.

   My eyes burned with all the new information I was suddenly aware of. A small question pulsed in the back of my mind: why are you doing this? I ignored it. Guilt tapped me on the shoulder, desperately trying to let me know what I was doing was wrong.

   But I didn't care, I just wanted to find out more, to understand the answers to so many other, larger questions I had. I thought I'd known him, but how much was a lie? And how much did he know about me?

   Drinking in the new-found knowledge laid out neatly before me in the Professor's scrawl of black ink, I read greedily: Name: Anthony B.

   His name was Anthony. Good old Ant; that was weird. I'd always thought he was a Jonathan, a Robert maybe, Carl at a stretch. And I supposed he either didn't like his last name very much or, if my gut instinct was correct, that wasn't his real identity. I saw the Next of Kin box had been left empty, next to his date of birth (which was filled in) and his date of death (which wasn't and seemed a little superfluous).

   My shocking maths skills whirred into life, and after a long time I worked out he was currently thirty eight – pretty young, for a University Professor – and my much better astrology skills told me he was a Capricorn. Other details, like his own phone number, doctor's name and registered hospital were scribbled in their corresponding boxes around the page and I glanced over them, until I came to one in particular: his address.

   In perhaps the fastest decision I have ever made, and spurred on by my relentless and irrepressible curiosity, I quickly found the torn out page containing my Professor's address and private details was clutched tightly in my hand as I practically ran out of the lecture hall, through the University campus and out onto the streets of London.

   I'd lived in the same city my whole life but still couldn't claim to know my way around; the first thing I did was find a tiny tourist shop tucked away in a corner, run by a kind old Asian woman, selling tea cloths and key rings and tiny double decker bus magnets. I purchased a large fold-out map and told her to keep the change from a £10 note, though I didn't know how much it had actually cost. She'd looked painfully happy.

   Comparing the Professor's written address – 13 Westfield Place, Brixton – to the map, it seemed as though he lived a considerable distance away; I privately thought it must have cost the Professor a fortune to get to work every day, and even I knew Brixton was the most dangerous place in London.

   Which was odd.

   How much did a university lecturer earn? Quite a lot, I would have imagined; I knew property in London was expensive, especially in this economy, but judging buy the quality of the clothes he wore in class, he could afford it.

   Maybe it was safer for him, being Inked, and on the run from the authorities, to live far away from his workplace? That didn't make much sense; Brixton was still in central London, where Police Headquarters were located. Surely if they'd murdered his soulmate they'd be after him as well? Perhaps it was best he hid, and lived a quiet life as a Professor in a seedy neighbourhood. Crime rates were famously high in Brixton, so I guessed it was easier for him to blend in and not be spotted. Somehow.

   It still struck me as odd, considering his general complacency, that he'd live somewhere so widely disregarded. But then, considering what I'd witnessed earlier, I was beginning to question how much of that was really him and how much was a mask.

   Knowing there was no way around it, I hailed a black cab, ignoring the look of pity on the driver's face when I told him I was going to Brixton; we both knew there was a chance I'd never return.