Young was grateful that the restaurant was a good trek away from where they started as it gave them plenty of time to enjoy this experience and each other. He had this feeling in the pit of his stomach that just wouldn’t abate since they got to the bookstore and now that they were getting ready to close out the day, it made him more anxious. It was like all the work he’d done to make Asha more comfortable with his new title and create some sort of normalcy was getting ready to be washed away. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his balls itch. Neither was a good sign, but he was determined to ignore it so that he could give Asha the best day possible. She deserved to be pampered after all the shit the people around her had put her through, him included.
Asha had wanted to pout about not being able to experience what it was like to first set off on a voyage via carriage, but she kept her brattyness in check. As Young pulled her into his side as close as poAsha had barely been holding onto the routine of her days, feeling as if she had no choice but to keep moving forward in the sludge of life. She was exhausted beyond belief with no relief in sight and if she hadn’t centered herself each morning she was sure she was going to explode on whoever decided she was a mat to be walked all over.Today was no different - she got up as usual, bargaining a few ‘5 more minutes’ with herself before she had to really get up. When she did - ever committed to the routine she’d painstakingly created over the last year - she ground her coffee beans with her pestle and mortar and put her coffee on to percolate while she did a quick warmup, one of her low impact cardios, a yoga stretch, and a 5 minute meditation for black women, all courtesy of YouTube. After a quick shower and getting dressed she rushed out her door to get into the car that wouldn’t start. No matter how hard she pumped the gas pedal, rubbed the dashboard, and begged, her baby just would
Like every other day, the company sent more products than they had space to put out or store and the supervisors and managers cracked down on her and her coworkers expecting miracles to be made out of the curses sent down by the higher ups. Asha was stressed out and stretched thin just like the rest of the team. When she finished her back room work and it was time for her to go onto the sales floor, surprise surprise, her most recent ex was in the store waiting around to watch her.They’d broken up almost six months prior and although she’d been the one to say the words, he’d been pushing her to it for at least half of the time they were together. When he convinced her to date him, his favorite thing to say was, “you’re everything I’ve been trying to manifest.” Between their conversations about the future and how he always seemed to want the same things as her, and the way he always seemed to care about her safety getting home when they first started getting to know one another, she f
She thought she was free and clear with weeks gone by of blessed silence, thanking the creator for the seemingly peaceful transition back into singlehood. Her life went back to normal without him and she had all of her free time to refocus on the life goals she’d set and had been gradually working towards. Then one day he just started showing up at her job. At first, Asha thought she was imagining his car in the parking lot while she was working. He wouldn’t be there everyday so she chalked it up to paranoia.It was a few weeks of chastising herself for being so overly suspicious until she couldn’t deny any more. Her coworker had taken her to lunch one week and what she had been writing off as paranoia was in fact her survival instincts telling her that she had a predator watching her. Sure enough, when they’d been seated and were catching each other up on everything that couldn’t be discussed in the store, she saw his car roll by and locked eyes with him. Although her anxiety had sky
Too bad she was also having difficulties protecting herself from the ex waiting for her in haunting dreams. Young Samuel Blood. A fuckboy of a man, who gave her the run around, dragging her heart behind him as bait. A man of few words and exploding passion, who was a selfish bastard unless he was pleasuring a woman. The one man that had opened her to the depths her pleasure could take her if a partner took their time to truly learn what she liked, what she needed. As much as she had been yearning to see his face pop up, she really could only call it a haunting since he’d died just over a year prior.When she decided to up and leave the tristate area he had acted as if she’d never leave, treating her the same way he always did. Although it hurt her feelings to know that despite all the early morning deep conversations she was still just another fuck for him. It did not surprise Asha in the least that he didn’t show up to her going away party, or remember what day she was leaving since
You’d think that her realization would warn her of just how skilled he was in mind games, but alas she set herself up for failure and the same lesson. After a few months of silence he reached out, supposedly needing a friend to talk to. It was a relief to be able to continue their meaningful conversations without the pressure of sex. The distance between them had created a feeling of an even deeper connection being fortified than their sexcapade rendezvous’ had, false of course.When the new year was around the corner, he made plans to come visit Asha. At least that’s what she thought until he ghosted her two days before he told her he would touch down and didn’t hit her up again until two weeks later. She had already grieved the reality that her hopes and dreams for a deeper relationship with him when he called her as if they had never discussed him coming to the A. It stung but she had realized that he only wanted to keep her around as a ‘just in case’, so to speak. Turns out, that
It nearly broke her to get that update, especially since it’d only been a few months after she almost succeeded in the same decision. They hadn’t talked since well before the new year, a sparse handful of texts holding what remained of their friendship together. Plus their mutual friend tried to emphasize that Young didn’t have any respect for the women in his life, including her, which gave her even more evidence as to why she had no reason to feel so stricken by the news. No matter how much she chastised herself though, she couldn’t let go of the hopes she had of reconciling their differences if she ever got a chance to come home. In her mind, there was a chance meeting or intentional meal in their future to talk through things and find a better way forward as friends rather than jilted ex-lovers muddling through a friendship. It was stupid but with every possible chance to have those confrontations suddenly eliminated, she’d plunged deeper into the depression she’d just started to
Asha’s insistence on remaining ignorant landed her in a toxic relationship with her stalker ex, Rell. They had met in an Uber, he was her driver, and it started as a business relationship. He needed someone to finish building his website and she was willing to help so they exchanged info. Between his seemingly respectful concern for her traveling on public transportation at night, letting her sleep on the couch whenever their late night meetings would run too long ; and his insistence that she was ‘everything he’d been manifesting’ Asha was in too deep before she realized it was a tar pit.It didn’t help that her 1 year survival anniversary since her attempted suicide coincided with the new year and 2 weeks after they’d officially agreed to be a couple. Having someone to hold her through the sounds of fireworks and gunshots going on outside and the atomic bomb of emotion happening inside was too alluring for her to want to give up the feeling. It was the first and only time Rell had m
Rell was too caught up in himself and his plans for their future to really notice or care about the increase in sleep deprivation she’d been experiencing. His aloofness to the trauma and pain she was working through really reached its peak when he found her in the kitchen crying as she prepared their dinner. He hadn’t even addressed her emotional breakdown, just asked if dinner would be done before 9 this time, a question he loved asking despite never offering to help. Eventually she had to admit that Rell just liked the idea of what parts of his ideal woman Asha fit and the longer they stayed a couple, the more apparent it became that she would never truly live up to the task of being her, his ideal woman. She tried though, damn did she really try. Seven months of consistently and excessively drinking despite being a super lightweight social drinker, using more grabba leaf in her joints than ever before, anything to numb her from the fact that she’d chosen to remain in a romantic pr
Young was grateful that the restaurant was a good trek away from where they started as it gave them plenty of time to enjoy this experience and each other. He had this feeling in the pit of his stomach that just wouldn’t abate since they got to the bookstore and now that they were getting ready to close out the day, it made him more anxious. It was like all the work he’d done to make Asha more comfortable with his new title and create some sort of normalcy was getting ready to be washed away. It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his balls itch. Neither was a good sign, but he was determined to ignore it so that he could give Asha the best day possible. She deserved to be pampered after all the shit the people around her had put her through, him included.Asha had wanted to pout about not being able to experience what it was like to first set off on a voyage via carriage, but she kept her brattyness in check. As Young pulled her into his side as close as po
Little did they know, both Asha and Young had the same thoughts on their mind as the older couple. Though they were playing out the day as if they could easily pick up from where they left off, as if there had been any normal part of their relationship in Young’s life or afterlife, they knew otherwise. It seemed they were constantly on a rollercoaster, going from ride to ride as the struggles and challenges got more and more advanced so did the frightening twists, turns, and plunges of their rollercoaster. But they both knew that this was yet another pivotal moment in the history of their relationship. Despite all they’d survived both together and separately to be able to get to this moment of forced normalcy, it was fragile. The question running through their minds was the same, ‘Could and would they last long enough to grow old and grey together?’Asha’s mind kept cycling between that question and ‘what if Young never grew old despite a successful release from his demonic sentence’
The older couple had continued to watch them from their little alcove connecting the back room with the rest of the store. Both happily joined Asha and Young, giggling like teenagers at the obvious care they both shared. To them it was comical to be able to see themselves in the young couple. Siphoning some of the frivolous fun being young and in love naturally procured. They had always been able to maintain the innocence of their bond, but it was couples like Asha and Young that added a little kindling and a lot of reminders as to why those moments were so important.As Young stacked the mountain of books on the counter, the older woman rang them up while the man gently bagged them in their custom tote bags. Young was surprised to find that the actual name of the shop was ‘Book Haven.’ It came extremely close to Asha’s description of ‘book nook.’ “Find everything alright?” she asked.Young paused his unloading to watch Asha’s face light up like the sky on 4th of July.“Yes! It was s
Coming back into his body from the minefield that had become his mind to witness Asha finally taking a seat in the nook she’d filled with books eased his spirit for the time being. He watched as she looked for whichever book that she just had to start reading right now before starting the harrowing task of sorting the rest to make space for her to get comfortable. Young joined her in the love seat, simultaneously placing her in his lap and putting the book she set aside in her hands to read. She gave him a look and thought better than to speak whatever had popped into her head as he started sorting her books out on the table and window sill.By the time he had finished his task of sorting the books so that it’d be easier to pick them up, she’d settled into him and was a few chapters in. Young sat back and eased into the feeling of having her in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder. The turning of the pages created a peaceful lull that Young hadn’t experienced in
As Young stood at the counter, caught up in watching Asha operate in her world from the outskirts of it, he wondered. Many things flit through his mind, memories, questions, random thoughts. The main thing he wondered though was ‘what if the spirit of the universe is really the spirit of her heart laid out in a trillion pages?’ Despite being shown her more negative lives, Young didn’t trust that the council had been telling him the whole truth. Watching Asha in her natural habitat, searching for her heart in the pages of those who left pieces of their souls to be examined, he wondered. He wondered how could someone with a spirit that shone of the brilliant balance she’d lived in every life could be so important to the parts that were so unbalanced. ‘How could someone that took in the broken boy and who searched for the shattered man belong to the evils of the world?’ She had every opportunity to give into her rage, despair, and vengeance with him in life and death, but her
Keeping with the theme of the day, ‘Asha’s complete and utter joy,’ Young happily drove them from the mall and to her favorite kind of store. He found a locally owned bookstore that gratefully had a lounge area for her to kick her feet up for a few hours and indulge in the pages of one of the books that would inevitably capture her full attention. As he talked with the owners of the book nook as Asha called it, divulging as much of their story as he could without disturbing their human psyche, he kept a watchful eye on his angel. She took her time going over each shelf with the same leisurely excitement he’d seen her do to at least a thousand different shelves since they were kids. Every now and then when he blinked, he saw every version of her he’d known in this life and a few times, visions of who she’d been in past lives, doing the same thing. “You must really love that woman young man,” the older man had said.Young turned his head to him and asked, “what makes you say that?”You
As they walked from the nail salon back to the car hand in hand, Young took note of the people around them, watching them watch Asha and him. Young looked at Asha and couldn’t help but see her and them both through the eyes of all these strangers. She did indeed look like the hot ass angel she was with the outfit he chose, one he’d seen her in plenty of times when allowed visitation. During his process of melding with Blood, the council would occasionally allow him moments to peek in on Asha as motivation to complete the mission they had for him. He’d always loved her lounging days when he was alive so that was the visual he always chose when he could. It was the only time she allowed herself to wear what she wanted rather than what she deemed appropriate to be seen in. Now she and this city was getting to experience her wearing what she wanted without a care of opinions.Alone Asha walked around with this aura that was just undeniable, but now with Young by her side and Bl
Asha was already warm and gooey with all of her old feelings being stirred up and mixing with the new ones Young was evoking. If she could describe herself right now she’d be a chocolate cookie fresh out the oven, with someone trying to eat it before it had a chance to cool down. And Young was definitely trying to eat her alive inside and out. As soon as she had went to reach to take the plate to the sink, there he was grabbing it out of her hands. It was like his sixth sense for when she was about to overwork herself with busywork had become heightened. Never had he snatched something from her before she could get to it, always immediately after. Then, he picked out an outfit that she loved wearing in the house but hated to expose herself in public in. Asha had no problem styling herself in extravagant and sometimes dramatic outfits just for herself. She would lay up in the house doing all types of self care things that would end with a romantic lunch
He had the immense pleasure of being able to watch her pretty pout of ecstasy turn into an even cuter one of frustration. No doubt the realization that she wasn’t going to get her next nut how and when she wanted a cold bucket to her psyche. She hadn’t changed one bit and that made his discovery even more rewarding. This he could work with, this he could mold to his advantage. They still had the core of who they were and thus the core of who they were as a pair and how they operated because of it. Not many souls had the privilege of claiming such a thing and yet they continued to for many millennia lost to the sands of time.With his observation, Young decided that today at least they were going to have a ‘normal’ day. Something akin to what they had at the pinnacle of their relationship would give him the motivation and inspiration to figure out what was next. He had to be smart about this or everything was going to come crashing down and quickly.After plating he