The scariest moment is always just before you start.

~Stephen King

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to those who started Ink Love with me—when Benson and Lauraine were just a cliché high school love story and would have ended with Lauraine moving to college and Benson having a nice life without Grace—to when I decided Benson was going to end up with Jake, and finally when it became The Inky Series.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To those that encouraged me to write it and those who wrote it with me when I started Ink Love in my senior secondary two. To the very first people who read my drafts, to my readers and commentators, and to my classmates who wanted to know how Lara and Benson's love story would end. This is for you.

To all the kids out there going through one thing or the other and doing their best to survive another day in secondary school or high school. To all the Bensons, Lauraines, Aces, Ebubes, Ebeles, Janes, and Heathers. ibby_gal, May__hem, Doodeelolaski.

To my sisters, Tolay_1027 and Purple_Deeza, to my mother, to Maro (my very own Megan Thee Stallion), Deborah Ekini. We survived secondary school, and the world is yet to know our names. To my best friends, Matthias, Eldred_FrozenDreams, Utibe, MCG, and my Hype man, Eden, for being there when the voices in my head were too loud. To my aunties, Aunty Deborah and Aunty Oaikena, for believing this writer would become someone great one day.

To Cameron Boyce. Thank you for putting smiles on our faces when we were younger and even when we grew up. To my hero, Chadwick Boseman, thank you for making me believe I am a king and a BLACK PANTHER. WAKANDA FOREVER!

To all the people that matter and need it and would be touched by it finally, to Elohim, for making me see the good in all that I went through to help others and for giving me the talent to weave this story. Official__Wni