when heaven and hell meet

twenty two

My heart sank and I stuffed my hands inside my pocket. We were doing so well. I assumed we were making progress, but of course I was wrong. How could I be so naive into thinking that this would be easy.

"Luci I-"

"And don't you dare blame it on being an angel of death," she interrupted. "Because that's such a childish excuse."

Silence fell over us and the sound of the wind through my open window was apparent. I walked over to her and grabbed her by the hem of her shirt again. She fell into my chest and glanced up at me through wide eyes.

"Luci," I whispered. "I know I don't deserve you- I mean your forgiveness. And because of that I'll spend my entire life begging for it."

She remained quiet so I continued, "But for this to work, you have to at least be open to forgiving me. You want that right?"

She looked conflicted. It was as if her mind was having an internal battle.

"I mean, I don't know," she said quietly.

I hid my smile and pinched her cheek softly.

"Mm, I think you do you know," I said. "If you truly wanted nothing to do with me, you would've stopped talking to me after we went to Azure."

"You're not being fair," she retorted. "I'm the one that's supposed to have the upper hand and give you all the ultimatums."

You do, you just don't know it.

"Cry about it Angel," I smirked.

She feigned a pout and let out a deep sigh.

"Fine, I'll consider trying to forgive you. This doesn't mean I will, but I am willing to give you a chance to prove yourself," she explained. "This doesn't have a high chance of working out for you. I don't owe you anything."

We were so close to each other that all it would take was a mere inch for me to...

"Are you done?" I asked.

She nodded and her eyes trailed from my eyes to my lips. My grip on her shirt tightened and she clutched onto my bicep for support. I was slowly but surely leaning in, and before I could blink, Luci pulled away from my grasp and walked to the area behind me.

She pulled her braids over her shoulder and let out a deep breath. I could tell she had gotten flustered by the way she avoided eye contact with me. She mindlessly paced around my room and started looking around to diminish the tension.

"Wow, you have a lot of books here," she remarked.

She walked over to my bookshelf and trailed her pointer finger along the spines of my hardcovers.

I wasn't that much of a reader. The classics were just something I liked to reread in my spare time. She picked up a red book from the middle of the shelf and started to skim through it.

"What is this?" she asked.

Her fingers went to the pages and I watched as she flipped through and noticed the little inscriptions inside the margins.

"Just a random poetry book I saw at the thrift store some years ago," I explained. "All of these books are new except that one."

She nodded and continued to read through the book. "Did you write all of this in here?"

"Yeah sort of," I admitted. "The poems that came with the book aren't even important. I just liked all the empty space on each page."

Inside the margins on some of the pages, I had written frivolous entries about casual things. All of them started with a date and took up the entire page. I guess it was like a diary of sorts.