Jasper’s melancholy would once again consume his daily trials. A broken heart is no way to spend a summer. The continual retreat away from sobriety consistently shaped his days. With a multitude of daily distractions, he conjured up a plethora of vices to melt into after twilight. Feeling alone led Jasper to a path that surrendered a cornucopia of bad habits and dead ends. The heart aches, and nothing can dull its morbid rhythm once it has been lacerated.

He would tell his friend Alice later on “The concept of my heart was like a puzzle: throughout life you find a place to fit each new piece, but that makes it so difficult to find a fit once you lose the keystone of the puzzle.”

Alice would tell him to stop fretting over a lost love. Some cliche about it being better to have loved.

His loss was called Delia. Once she had moved on, and Jasper had not, the world became shaded in grey. The arms of his lover was his repose, and without that he would soon downward spiral into a realm of self destruction.