Faded

The entire campus had been abandoned and ruin was beginning to edge the old buildings. Still, the tall, iron wrought gates were sturdy and impassable, protecting the old school from vandalism and vagrants. As strong as they were, they didn't do any good against the random bits of litter tangled in the tall grass and caught at the foot of the lengthy walls. Still, the school looked just as it did in his memories, albeit a little darker and gloomier than he recalled.

He tapped the gate with his toe before continuing around to find the way that would lead him to the lakeside. A dull path had been worn through the bare, autumn woods and he followed it to a dilapidated pier that he once frequented in his younger years. It used to be warm and inviting, but now it was eerie and desolate. The sound of water lapping against the moss ridden columns was the only sound blending with the quiet rushing of empty air.

Carefully, he stepped onto the old wood to see if it would hold under his weight. There were numerous broken planks that left the entire thing practically destroyed, but he wanted to see what it was like to sit at the end of it again. He made it across without incident and crouched down to peer into the dark depths of the water.

A few memories drifted to him and he smiled fondly at most. He shifted to settle into a sitting position, taking notice of stark black against greenish, graying wood. When he moved his hand, he realized it was a sequence of words scrawled across the plank with a black sharpie.

I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find her.

The slant was direct, its curves graceful. The boldness of the ink led him to believe that it had been scribbled fairly recently.

He could recognize that handwriting anywhere. A quiet image of a girl with short, dark brown hair and shaded blue eyes came to mind. His hand drifted over the written words as he was compelled to wonder about her. What happened to that girl and what was she like these days? Where was she now?

He chuckled, knowing very well that there was a good chance she was still in that city at the bottom of the hill. Her old self, he believed, he knew very well.

Her old self was meek, unsure, and genuine. She always looked down when she lied and she always looked up when she wanted to cry. She blushed at the slightest of implications and she was quick to apologize, even when she wasn't at fault. But the fact that she was true, the fact that she was genuine was what really hooked him onto her. She always said what she meant and whole heartedly meant what she'd said. Even if she struggled with her words and spoke so softly you'd have to strain to hear.

Sometimes, she tried to lie. But her smiles were transparent. He could always tell her real smiles from her false ones. It was in the way her mouth curved, how her shoulders rested, and the small creases in the corner of her eyes. She didn't like being so honest with her feelings and she fought against it time and again.

"Don't ask me," she would half say and half plead with her mouth firmly set in a determined smile.

But he would always ask and that would be the trigger that brought on all her tears.

He couldn't help but wonder what happened to that girl he remembered. Who was she now and what happened to make her seek out her old self? For a moment, he imagined her sitting in that very spot, dragging the letters out with a thick Sharpie pen in a moment of melancholy and regret.

Again, he traced his touch over the words before leaning back and propping his hands on the splintering wood behind him. His fingers unintentionally slipped in-between a wide gap between the planks and he curiously brought out the smooth, cylindrical instrument that happened too be wedged there.

It was a black Sharpie. When he twisted off the cap and eyed the worn tip, he had no doubt it was the very same one used to scrawl the cryptic message he had been reading.

He thought on it for a moment before sitting up straight and bringing the marker down to the empty space below the old words. It floated there for a long span of seconds as his minds eye recalled the image of a smiling girl with bright eyes sitting in that spot beside him as her legs swung over the water below.

She never left.

He capped the marker, eyeing his straight, upright penmanship as he reached back and put the marker where he found it. The corner of his mouth tipped up into a fond smile and he turned his attention back to the opposite shoreline edged with balding orange trees.

Watching the autumn afternoon pass in an abandoned quiet, he was inclined to imagine that one day, she might return to this place and recognize his scrawl on the wood.

Maybe it would be vivid when she saw it tomorrow, or discolored in months after the long winter.

At that time, maybe she would be the one to stop and reflect on the quiet, faded memories of him in their days long past.