One year, eight months, three days. It was funny how such a short amount of time could feel endless when crammed with so many painful seconds. Each one counting. Each one vast. It wasn’t too long ago that time didn’t matter to Seb — for he was so young, so passive, all that mattered being his music and his friends. Time was no conflict to him and his life, his easy life. But now, each second was a gift. Each second was another one to count and cherish. So many seconds had passed since he last sat upon this bench — so much had happened. He was told that he was Cancer-free on the 2nd of March, 2016. One year, two months, and sixteen days ago. Since then he’d been building upon himself, fearing who he might have been had the Cancer killed him; how he would be remembered. He was a nothing. A fleeting memory, a fleeting friend, nobody’s anything — just a silent somebody, a silent presence. The only passion in his life had come from his friends; his friends who loved him so fiercely and so against his comprehension. Elena he kept in touch with almost daily. She’d moved on from The Tonic and had become a Solo Artist. He remembered so clearly the blend of excitement and choked surprised in her voice, which was muffled through the telephone, when he’d told her he was going back to Lincolnshire. She’d said she’d have to visit — come and see everyone, especially him, but Seb knew she would never find the time. But Lincolnshire was only a harness on Elena’s potential, only a bruise on her mind. For Seb...It had been somewhere he’d found belonging. As much as he’d complained in the past, it was his home. Just the people who’d made it home had fled, and now it was a skeleton — a ghost town — of the utopia he’d wished to reunite with once he’d fully recovered. There was no one to reunite with. No one he knew of that was still around. “I’m only reading the Sun because I found it here,” he grumbled, feeling somebody’s eyes upon him but not wishing to discover who it was.
