'Jules' mind went back under the moonlight and night air of Baldwin's Fine Arts Center Garden, where intense anger shifted into an intimate moment of curiosity with a blow of the wind.
Maybe two flames weren't supposed to be that close when raging...
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"It could all be so simple, but you'd rather make it hard. Loving you is like a battle, and we both end up with scars."
- Lauryn Hill
*TW: Sexual Assault (Light Occurrence)
JULES LAID IN bed that night, her nipples pierced through her shirt due to the cold breath of the air conditioner.
She hated bras.
She always roamed independent and complacent as her small breasts clung to her chest. She was a individual who ate simplicity alive at times, and boy did it love to satisfy her hunger.
Her mind replayed the night with Raheem over and over again — from finally deciding to see what the commotion was about at Soul Cypher, to hearing the poem for the first time, to the argument that she had with him before storming off.
She combed through every detail — how his voice shook a tad as he spoke into the microphone, how his eyebrows raised once he'd realized she was listening, the way a look of astonishment waved over his face after he realized he'd admitted those four words.
I care about you.
She wondered if he'd take them back too, if time allowed it.
Her mouth exhausted a sigh as she watched the bedroom door close from Ayden's force.
Her body laid back in the lightless room. With her hands behind her head, she tried to find the best way to lay before falling asleep.
Jules' body tossed and turned like a flipped coin before she found a position that she was comfortable in. Normally, the rain that fell from the sky like tonight would help — but at that moment it was just noise.
She listened as thunder erupted throughout the night. The rain, sweet tears of pleasure, pattered along the windowsill.
He had some nerve to play the back and forth game with her feelings. Jules determined early on that she wouldn't be want to be yanked by anyone, but as her mind plastered one thing into view — a gust of wind within her body made her think otherwise.
What did he get out of seeing her go back to square one with him again, and then attempting to build higher ground with her?
Did he like the challenge? Did he truly find this amusing?
She tossed again, Forget him.
Yet, as much as she wanted to forget — she couldn't.