The other pen made promises, but could never be trusted, always running out of ink before we reached the last page.
“It’s not you,” I said, “it’s me.” Then I headed for the drugstore.

There, I ran into an old pen I hadn’t seen in a while. We’d spent some time together long ago, nothing serious, just a few laughs in an old notebook I used to own, but still, I felt bad for having let it slip from my fingertips and having fallen out of touch.

“Look,” I said, “you have to understand, things were weird for me back then.  I was experimenting with graph paper and I had a three Moleskine a week habit.”

The pen just dangled there against the pegboard.

“Things are better now,” I said, “I’ve stopped ripping out the pages, a lot of my stuff is coherent. I got a cat.”

I reached out, touched the plastic. No resistance. The pen settled into my palm and followed me back home.

We started slow, a little underlining, a few phrases. The ink felt smooth against the paper as it made its way along the margins.

Next week, if all goes well, we’ll go downtown and search for a whole new notebook, one we can agree on. Maybe something college ruled, maybe no lines at all.

I don’t know. We’ll see. We’re beginning a whole new chapter.