Gansey had a new journal when he returned to Henrietta from the road trip. Certainly, he still carried the old one he’d had for the Glendower search. It had so many pieces of his heart in it, and maps to places he hadn’t yet seen on his quest. If he was to come across one of the places on those maps, he wanted to be sure he recorded it. But this new journal had started to catch pieces of his heart in a completely different manner. It too was leather, with ties to hold it closed when it wasn’t in use. He’d picked it up in the bookstore of a small town somewhere in the midwest. The pages of this journal were also pleasant to touch, hand bound and with textured edges, he was caught running his fingertips along them quite often when he couldn’t keep still.
The first several pages of the journal were all about Blue and Henry. Ramblings about places they wanted to go, a recording of the places Blue wanted to protest. Henry’s favorite places to eat and the random bits of history they picked off trail signs and faded brochures under glass at rest stops. Little sketches were in the margin, like the shape of Blue’s face with a hint of her smile, doodles of Henry’s hair standing tall. Where there wasn’t writing, sometimes there were leaves pressed in the center, the little fuzzy resolution printouts bought from photobooths where they barely managed to squeeze all three of them inside. Gansey took note of ley line coordinates and picked up things that felt like magic, let the trees tell him how to shift the rocks more pleasantly and cleared obstructions from tiny little rivers no one knew the names to. He never wanted to forget any of it, so the journal never strayed far from his hands.
When he returned home, settling in at the Barns so he could fill out college paperwork, he added more to it. Pages and pages of Ronan’s dreams and the things he made them for breakfast. Sketches of the strange and skittish ox-vapor creature Ronan called Gasoline, deer in the treeline, black feathers between his scrawling text. Gansey took more pictures than he owned up to, snuck out to places he could print them and stick them in this journal. Leaves from the trees at the Barns, a Cambridge maple leaf that stuck to Adam’s wool coat when he visited on fall break. Pictures of Adam, doodles of the Harvard emblem, some more detailed sketches of the smiles Ronan and Adam gave each other.
This new journal carried the memories of Gansey’s heart living in the people he loved. He would do anything for them, he would give them anything. What he wanted in return, what he craved without being brave enough to ask, was for their memories. So little by little, he plucked them out of the lives they lived and carefully preserved them, carried them close to him, loved them with all he was.
[written for @ganseyweek - Day 7: Journal / Passionate / Body language]
