Clementine had become a wild child. Born in America but raised abroad, she now had little regard for the expectations of high society. But her reckless ways eventually catch up with her when she is kicked out of college in New York City and forced t...
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Once the initial shock wore off on him this time, he kissed her back, hard. As if he could feel it too, they both could, that this was the start of the beginning and let's live while we can kind of deal.
Something revolutionary happened inside clementines mind: The realization of what if what she saw in him was not what not as much what but the opposite; what if it was exactly what she had all along and maybe she just needed him to take it out of her.
She decided , just for more night , if only, to let go of all her judgements. To drop her principles the way she'd drop her dress for him that night.
She was grateful, after all, for helping her see what she had in her all long!
He slid his hands expertly across her body, bringing back all those familiar feelings to the surface. Everything that was repressed.
"How will I ever get over this?" Clementine asked out loud in near rapture, and he either didn't hear her or chose not to hear her.
He lay her down on the sofa, and she could tell he was spending more time on her than usual. Once again, getting the sense that they both knew how it was going to end.
There was a string of words, thoughts that came up in her mind:
Cause I know how the story ends
One more time you're gonna hold my hand
Remember when you gave me a name
I want you to hurt me
So I don't have to look back
In your direction
And is it too late
Did I miss the cancelled train
Alone in my principles
He moved his hands up and down her body, biting and licking and kissing. Cutting the pleasure with the pain.
Clementine turned her face to the side and fought back....tears. How strange, she thought, just like the first night - she remembered crying - but seemingly for all the different reasons this time.
"Stop!" She cried out all of a sudden.
"What?" Zico looked up at her in the midst of the near rapture.
"Can we just, pause?" She asked him softly, and he moved back up on top of her, kissing her gently on the lips once and looking in her eyes, nodding.
"I don't think I can do it tonight," the words were coming out of Clementine and she didn't even know why.
"We don't have to do if you don't want to," Zico said and it occurred to her that she always could have said no before, but that she has always been passive to what was happening to her.
Clementine got up on her elbows and looked at the floor.
He was always the leader, but here he was, open to being flexible. Adaptable. She wondered what had gotten into him and whether she has ever really respected herself.
"I...I just think that if we do it tonight, I'm not strong enough to handle that after all the time...apart." Though this was already enough to take her over the edge, she realized she didn't want to completely be at ground zero.
"We can just lie here...in this...church closet," Zico calms said and they both aligned, taking stock of their situation.
If it wasn't the laughing, she might have been crying.
"What's going to happen?" Lying there together, Clementine didn't want to have to talk about anything that happened, but she couldn't help but ask him. "To us? To me, to you...to everyone we know?"
"Honestly, I don't know. Things have been hard, and it feels they're only getting harder. The only ray of hope I've had was thinking of you. Even when I wasn't...with you," Zico confessed to her and Clementine realized he was referring to the others he was with between them.
He had his arm around her and she turned to look up at him.
"I'm afraid," she said, taking herself by surprise.
Zico just looked up at the ceiling, and she had a hard time reading him.
Then he finally spoke: "That means you have not been afraid to live, which is more than what most people can say." He kissed her on the forehead and jumped up. "Come on, you don't wanna miss the fireworks, do ya?"
Clementine thought about what he said, an it made her feel a little better. Like maybe it all meant something.
Then laughing again, she getting up and putting her dress back on, as he was helping her to zip it up from the back, she asked him "how did you know about the fireworks?"
"I can read, you know," he said pulling out the program of the night fro his back pocket.
Of course, Mina made programs for her wedding. The ever organized, immaculate Mina. And of course she missed the program but she knew about the fireworks because Mina raved about them ahead of time.
"I didn't actually!" She teased him as they both were getting ready to step out the door.
"Wait," he said, "maybe you should go out first, I'll go out later. You know, so they don't see."
"You know something?" Clementine said, taking his hand, "I really don't care anymore."
And they stepped out together into the night, just like they did so many times before.
