α ηєω ѕтαят
A brand new start.
That's what this was. A new start to another chapter of his life. Returning home from almost a year of being out of the country with the Merchant Marines, re-admitted into Columbia University, a new apartment, dingy and cramped, downtown (there was no way he'd return to living in the dormitories after all that'd happened the first time he'd lived there)---all of it was a blank page ready to be written on.
Except a part of Allen knew that it wasn't a truly new start, not completely anyways. Though his friends weren't physically around anymore, he kept in touch with all of them, exchanging letters as frequently as possible since the disbandment of the Libertine Circle. He knew that Bill was still experimenting with new drugs and Jack's marriage to Edie was strained, what with him wanting to return to New York.
And Lu---
Allen never told Lu about his plans to join the Merchant Marines. Hell, it wasn't even really planned, to be honest. It was a spur of the moment, I need something to do with my life and I can't afford to keep living here without any sort of steady income kind of decision.
Still, Allen knew that despite the frequent exchange of letters, things between the two of them couldn't remain the same. Hell, he didn't even know anything about when Lu was expecting to be released, something that he had a feeling the others in the group might know or at least had an inkling of.
This may have been a fresh start of a new part in the aspiring poet's life, but as he headed down the streets of New York and towards the bar that he spent countless, unknown hours in, in some ways, it wasn't. It was simply returning home after an extended vacation.
