A Lily Among Thorns

𝙲𝙷𝙰𝙿𝚃𝙴𝚁 𝙵𝙾𝚁𝚃𝚈-𝚂𝙴𝚅𝙴𝙽

Just a heads up that this chapter and the next one are... experimental. I personally have never seen a book with chapters like this, butttt my reading game is wack rn so I really don't know.

Just take your time reading, no need to read all of it in one sitting, andddd remember that I didn't want to drag this book on for much longer 🤠👍🏽(with that being said, we're getting close to the end)

✞ C E L A I L a C R O I X ✞

The bright sun shines in Celai's closed eyes and she rolls over in Julian's bed, surprised he's no longer beside her. They spent the whole night reminiscing about Bernard and when the sound of the busy interstate died down, signaling that the city was asleep, they both crashed, unable to keep their eyes open for any longer.

But now, it's twelve in the afternoon on a Tuesday and Julian's nowhere to be seen.

Celai gets out of bed and goes into his connected bathroom. She's surprised and a bit smitten to see a new toothbrush, washcloth, and towel laid out on the sink already. She smiles to herself and gets ready with what's available to her, finishing off by putting on a pair of Julian's clothes.

She goes into the living room, expecting to see Julian, but upon seeing the empty room, she discovers he isn't even in the apartment. Her mind immediately goes to the worst, but before letting anything fester, she picks up her phone— which she left on the counter last night— and goes to her messages.

It all starts to make sense when she stumbles upon Julian's text from two hours ago that says, 'Went to go see my therapist.'

She sighs in relief, whispering, "Thank You, God," and she goes on answering her other messages, which only consists of others checking up on her and Julian. After settling the wild texts, Celai calls Kassima.

"Where have you been?!" she frantically asks, picking up on the first ring.

"Julian wanted me to spend the night. Don't worry, we were up for the majority of the time talking," Celai explains.

"Oh..." her mother responds, her tone calming down. "Is he okay?"

Celai sits on the couch. "Bernard is still fresh in his mind, so no, he's not okay," Celai tells her. "He's with his therapist right now."

"Aw, I feel so bad for him. I can't imagine how he feels. Please remind him he can talk to Brian and me any time."

Celai looks over at the front door opening and sadness follows Julian as he walks in. "I'm gonna call you later, Mom." She hangs up before Kassima can say goodbye and she smiles at Julian, folding her legs under her.

"Hey," she says, paying close attention to his movements. Everything he did is in slow motion and ridden with depression. Julian gives her a small smile that lasts a moment, like a shrug with his lips. Still, Celai pushes on. "How was therapy?"

He sits beside her and sighs. "I'm blessed that Rochelle could squeeze me in earlier, but I really would've done better staying here with you."

She rubs a hand through his loose curls. "What did y'all talk about?"

"The same stuff you and I talked about last night: Bernard and I's conversation about God calling him to 'move on', the shoes I'll be filling, how his family may be feeling. All she did was try and get me to express my feelings. But I already know that I feel empty and whenever I told her that, she told me to dig deeper. She didn't really help."

"Maybe it's for a reason; maybe you should talk to God. He knows loss better than anyone and He can help better than anyone too."

Julian stares out in space after her words end and Celai rubs his arm. "What are you thinking about?"