A Lily Among Thorns

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙵𝙾𝚁𝚃𝚈-𝚃𝙷𝚁𝙴𝙴

"Good," he says. He gently lifts her hand off his chest. "I think I'm gonna go home. I'll find room for the shelter tomorrow."

"Are you okay?" Celai asks worriedly.

"Yeah, I just don't feel like going right now," he shrugs. She doesn't believe him for a second.

Nevertheless, she plays along. He walks to the front door and wraps his hand around the knob. After pausing, he turns back to Celai. "Did you want to come?"

She hesitates. She knows something is wrong with him from the way his demeanor changed, and going with him could help her figure out why that happened. She nods and follows him out.

Celai tries to ignore the silence Julian gives her when she agrees to tag along, but it seems to worsen when they get in his car and leave. It makes her feel like she was better off going home instead.

Accompanied with his silence, Julian's hand is gripping the wheel hard, his eyes are laser-focused on the road in front of him, and the most alarming thing is he isn't looking at Celai. It's a small detail, but Celai always found him glancing at her as he drove and he hasn't done so at all this time around.

Celai starts grasping at straws, pulling out recent memories and making puzzle pieces fit into Julian's peculiar behavior. After a while, she starts to come to the conclusion that it had something to do with Joyner. She heard the whole conversation between the two, but she constantly replays the scene in her head, trying to see if she missed something.

And sure enough, by the time Julian pulled into the apartment parking lot, Celai had formed an answer to Julian's silence, which he didn't break the entire car ride.

Celai looks at him. "Are you mad at me? Because of Joyner and I?"

His stone expression turns confused. "What-?"

"I don't want you thinking I cheated on you with him because I didn't and I never will. I know that it sounds random, but I know you, Julian, and I can tell you're upset about something. So I'm just thinking that's why. And if not, can you please tell me? We're supposed to be communicating, not trying to guess each other's body language." Celai cuts off her rambling by biting her lip.

Julian stares at her hard. He cuts off his car and says, "I didn't think that," before getting out of the car.

Celai lets out a frustrated groan and follows suit by getting out of his car. "So then what is it?" she asks.

Julian shrugs and a hint of defeat colors his eyes. "I don't know. I have to think about it."

Celai can settle for that. He admits he's upset, and it's okay that he doesn't know why.

She nods her head and they both go to his apartment. Once they're inside, Julian walks away to his room, practically separating himself from Celai.

Seeing him do that tears Celai's heart to pieces and she finds herself starting to blink back tears. She's supposed to be his companion in fixing his issues, not be the issue itself. She's supposed to be the one he can confide in.

She wipes a stray tear and pulls herself together. "You're just overthinking," Celai whispers to herself, though she isn't completely sold on herself. She sniffs and sits down in his living room; she wants to respect Julian's decision of distancing himself despite her being upset.

She attempts to distract herself with TV, but after ten minutes and Julian still being a no-show, her mind begins to drift again. Specifically, it drifts back to Joyner and her. She somehow convinced herself she's the problem without consoling anyone but her flawed thoughts.

And her mind continues to poison itself. Celai thinks back to Julian's facial expression when she told him Joyner was the only one she dated. It changed so drastically and if she has to guess, that was when his attitude switched.

She thinks long and hard about what she said, dissecting every word.  "Joyner. Was. The. Only. One."

"Joyner. Was. The. Only. One."

"Joyner. Was. The. Only. One."

"Joyner. Was. The. Only. One."

Celai suddenly stands up and she can't stop her feet from moving to Julian's room. She knocks on the open door to his bedroom and Julian looks over at her.

She inhales deeply. "Is it because I gave Joyner a part of me that should've only been shared with one person?" Celai watches Julian's face distort in the similar complex expression from earlier and her heart sinks.

He stares at her and she finds herself at a loss for words. She figured it out, possibly before he did. But the cold look he gives her says it wasn't that far from his mind.

Celai crosses her arms. "Jules, you have to remember that I didn't find Christ until after I did that. Yes, it doesn't reverse what I did, but it's not like I'm still doing it."

He shows no reaction, not from what Celai could see as he has his back turned to her. "Julian..." she says softly. "Is that why-"

Celai's cut off by Julian walking away and tears threaten to spill from her eyes. He isn't even looking at her anymore.

Her heart sinks deeper and deeper as reality sets in— the reality being another issue of the past arising in their present. Their present and future.

Celai follows him, asking him again if that's the reason he's upset. But his verbal answer is nonexistent. When it feels like Celai is following him around like a lost puppy, she stops.

"Julian," she says shakily. "Are we really going to do this? A-are you really going to hold this over my head? I'm sorry if I'm not pure enough for you and I'm sorry I didn't find Jesus soon enough, but if you're going to be stupid about this, you're going to get stupid results."

Julian looks at her and says, "Celai, just stop."

"Then you stop ignoring me! I'm trying to pry answers out of you and you're just walking around mad at me! I'll stop bothering you after you answer my question: are you mad that I'm not a virgin?!"

His silence speaks volumes and Celai shakes her head, whipping out her phone to order an Uber. She doesn't know if she should yell or cry, be angry or upset. All she can think is how could they stay together if Julian would act this way over her past sex life.

Tears trickle down Celai's cheeks and she pushes past Julian and goes into his guest bedroom, not wanting him to see her cry. She closes the door behind her and stifles her sobs as she confirms her Uber. It feels as if she's losing the love of her life because she practically is.

She drops to her knees and inhales deeply, trying to form words to pray to God, but when nothing comes to mind, she just cries. It's all she can do.

She just prays the Lord will fix this because she knows she can't.