'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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"We can both be insane. A fatal attraction is common, and what we have common is pain."
— Kendrick Lamar
RAHEEM WATCHED AS Jules slowly pulled her face away from his grip. Although her cheeks didn't mirror red tones, the hitch in her breathing and the tightening of the muscles by her collarbone led him to believe that she was flustered.
The moon was a poet, she wrote lines of clouds across the sky and dotted her i's with stars. She made a simile of the sun with her glow, rhymed the chirps of cicadas with the songs of crickets, and lulled bodies among campus to sleep with her flow. She was powerful — lyrical.
As the dark night swallowed the earth, indigo became a sheet to hang out in the atmosphere to dry come dawn.
"I--," she huffed in between her words, "I kissed you because —" Her eyes searched the walls that cornered them for an answer.
The barrier of stone she'd often put on like a cloak was fading, unveiling flesh she dared not to let the sun touch.
"Because you wanted to." Raheem finished for her before rising from the bed to meet her gaze. His tall frame towered over her, "Don't worry -- I won't tell."
"Not if you want to keep your tongue." Jules threatened while taking a step backward.
All uneasiness had disappeared, as she chose to be brooding once again.
"Secrets happen." He assured, "This one can be ours."
"Why should I trust you? You say one thing and then do another." Her arms tightened over her chest.
"I've told you time and time again Jules -- I didn't mean what I said last week."
"And that's my point exactly. What do you mean Raheem? The public would like to know. Hell, do you even know? You sure said it like you meant it." She challenged.
Between the soreness of his body and the slight stinging of the cuts that stretched across his skin, he was growing impatient with just about everything. A draft was starting to flow in from overhead, giving his bare-backed chest a chill.
There was no room to beat around the bush, he just wanted to be done with the situation at hand so he can lay down and rest before departing home tomorrow.
"Can we talk about this later?" He suggested.
"In case you forgot, I'm only in here because you got your ass handed to you tonight. If you don't tell me now there will be no later."
Raheem's whole body was on fire. His calves burned, his chest stung, and his face felt tight enough to be tied twice over.
His patience was running thin and his mental was not stable enough to handle another lashing from Jules' tongue.
