Not more than strangers✔️

05| a p a r t

"And if the sky should ever die.
We'd make our own light,
You and I."
~John Mark Green

————

February 25th, 1971.

It's on cold days you realise the kind of warmth the body craves and that perhaps you're truly alone.

Warmth just the byproduct of what loneliness really is, like an ugly hell hound.

Loneliness we know is the most familiar thing. And maybe that's what Kemi feels when Funni wouldn't look him in the eyes anymore, wouldn't hold his hand or want body contact with him.

It's not that she doesn't love him anymore—-

It was just the wrong kind. Perhaps in another life they would be something greater than what she'd reduced them to.

The guilt wouldn't let her inhale the scent that lingered on his dark skin she loved to feel under her fingertips.

Times changed, she changed and she didn't know how to tell him slowly, to not break his heart into a million pieces in just a few words.

She wasn't being cruel, she knew that. She was putting herself and her feelings first, something she had never done.

It was her life and this feeling was so new to her and she was tired of the 'it's what they would want for me.'

But seeing Kemi now, his eyes glazed over in his sorrow, she couldn't tell if keeping him was what she wanted or what her parents wanted.

At least when she pleased Pierce, he pleased her as well. A give and take.

She licks her lips, her blood turning to ice as they stare at one another. The words weren't even formulating, what would she say to him?

Her mouth opens and then closes abruptly. That's it, that's exactly it, she wasn't going to say anything.

"Kemi I-"

One moment she feels her lips moving, words filling the space now replaced by the smacking of lips and his harsh breathing—

"Kemi-" He kissed her again, she pulled away, placing her hands between their bodies. "Kemi stop."

"Why don't you love me anymore? Is it the distance? Something I did? What did I do?" His mind raced, firing each question.

He needs to know, if she felt caged then she should have spoken up. Even when he threatened to leave her, he didn't mean the words. His anger spoke before his true self and the truth was he wanted her to be more careful around other men.

Things are different and it hurts.

He tries to hold her and feels rubber, the familiarity of her lips feel foreign against his. He wasn't ready for Funmi, she just happened, her family and his just happened and he was already comfortable and used to her.

He's gazing at a stranger, a completely different person from who he was introduced to. The fire in her eyes and the ice slated in her words made him want to run for the hills and never look back. But he didn't give up easily even though he was slowly growing to hate her for her infidelity.