Platonic.

33

A tattooed hand dials down the volume of the music playing in the car, making it easier for him to spot the two students strolling comfortably on the lit path between bricked dormitories.

His eyes are low beneath the brim of his hat and the interior of his car is hazy from smoke as it puffed through his nostrils.

Dez sits up in his seat after not moving for what felt like hours. He blinked a few times, pulling his hat around to sit backward on his frizzy mane of twists.

He'd been sitting there in the parking lot for about 20 minutes, piling over what he would say or do once he'd worked up enough nerve when or if he saw her.

To say he was prideful would be an understatement.

He wasn't raised to know how to process his emotions healthily or admit when he was wrong. Accountability was a foreign concept. His entire family was in the streets or prison at some point or another and love was just a word used by the weak.

Dez didn't sweat the small shit, which to him were things like relationships or the feelings of others. He respected women as much as he deemed they deserved and when one didn't serve his needs at that moment, he was often dismissive of them.  They always came back anyway so why trip?

Even with Alana.

He loved her and he knew that.

But he couldn't love her more than she loved him.

He wasn't built to.

There was something about seeing her new tattoo though, the one covering theirs completely, that gave Dez the impression that she wasn't coming back this time.

His eyes wandered to the hand resting lazily against the steering wheel, lingering on the faded anchor amongst the many other tattoos that branded covered his tawny skin.

None of them touched the anchor though.

He coughs out the last pull of his blunt and he narrows his eyes when he immediately recognizes Alana walking from the distance as she neared her building.

And who she was walking with.