Ink | Soulmate AU | ✓

seventeen | moonlight

The eerie light of the full moon washed out the usual vividness of the park; I'd been surprised when he'd asked me to meet him here, and at such a late hour. But then, I'd been surprised he asked me to meet him at all. It didn't seem like a thing people did, except in films.

I supposed it was so he could slip out of bed without his wife noticing. It shouldn't have surprised me, not really. I was almost certain she didn't know about any of this. Not the truth, anyway. I guessed that was what I was about to find out.

Moonlight danced darkly between shadows, casting a ghostly silver glow over the dead winter grass, making skeletal arms out of tree branches waving in the wind.

The bench felt cold and hard beneath me, wrought iron digging into my thighs as I wriggled uncomfortably; I'd been sitting waiting for what seemed like hours, although, as my phone told me the time was 3:20am, it had clearly only been twenty minutes.

I contemplated writing George a message, but decided against it. I thought I should probably find out what was going on first. If the Professor ever showed up. He had suggested this little rendezvous, and then he had the gall to show up late?

Just then, a figure formed at the open gates: tall, slender, cloaked in the night – and it was walking my way. I shivered, not entirely because of the chill air. I knew it was him, just from his stride.

When did I become so familiar with his walk?

Silencing the thought, I let out the breath I didn't know I was holding; it came out white and misty and ethereal in the chilly frost. He was just a few steps away now, and I could feel my tension rising: just how much was I about learn that I didn't want to know?

The Professor took his seat on the bench opposite me. He had an offhand air, like earlier had never happened, or it had all just been a bad dream. If only it had. We were sat just across a narrow path from each other: too far apart to touch, but just close enough that I could hear his every hissing syllable as he spoke, ever so quietly.

'Hello, Archie.' Then, I heard him exhale through his nose in the dark– a sour kind of laugh. 'It seems like I've said that a lot, recently. Maybe too much.'

I gulped and felt the glob of saliva and mucus slide down my throat. I thought I might throw up.

'Here's how it's going to go, little girl,' he said sweetly. 'I'm going to talk, and you're going to listen, and then you're going to get out of my life forever.'

Kicked off the course, then.

I watched as he slid his long hands into his black coat pockets. 'You're not going to ask any questions. You're not going to breathe a word. And Archie,' he continued, his voice slick as oil, 'There is a reason I'm explaining this to you. But not one you're entitled to know.'

He was so eerily and softly spoken I didn't quite know how to react.

'My son is in prison,' he said quietly and abruptly.

I swallowed. My voice came out soft and cracked: 'G-George? I thought—'

'Don't,' he cut in sharply, 'interrupt me.'

A moment passed before he spoke again. I wondered if he was crying; I couldn't see his face for shadow. He sounded creepily calm, and in many respects, that was much worse.

He began to speak again. 'He was arrested. It feels like years ago – but I guess the time goes a little slower for me.'

For the first time, he sounded truly sad. And I knew what he meant about the slowness— wait, so was that the reason why? Was that why time had felt so strange for me? If George was in prison, the days would certainly be slower for him and, with our Inked connection, maybe I'd feel it too.