"You're quiet tonight."
Zaria Shepherd looked down with a blank stare at the sapphire eyes that gazed up at her from the shaved head resting on her lap. "I know." She smiled softly and dropped her right hand onto his abdomen. "I'm seriously out of it. Sorry." She apologized. She wasn't quite sure why she was so untalkative. Her mind was cluttured, sure, but that was everyday Zaria and she managed to talk up a storm regardless. She was thinking it had to do with Justin's presence. He relaxed her so much she didn't even worry about carrying a conversation. Their silence could sometimes speak volumes.
"It's cool." The Tennessee native slid his fingers around the hand she'd placed on his midsection, smiling at the contrast in skin colors. For some reason he loved comparing their differences and common interests because common interest outweighed the differences that seemed to matter so much to other people. Cream and coffee. He adored it. He brought her hand to his lips and kissed the caramel-colored skin softly. "I don't mind." He said, although when Zaria had called him, he thought she might've had more to say. Evidentally, she wasn't ready to start killing him with words just yet.
Zaria nodded slightly. "That's why I like you. I don't have to struggle for words. If I have nothing to say I can sit in silence and you won't mind." She rubbed her palm against his head with her free hand as she spoke.
"Well," He said as he released her hand and moved into a sitting position, sliding his feet off the end of the couch and onto the floor. "You know what I like about you?"
Without Justin's head on her thighs it was easy enough for Zaria to pull her legs off the tan carpet that covered the floor of the living room and tuck them underneath her, indian style. "The fact that I'm beauty and brains?" She joked, smiling without effort, something she and Justin did without shame around one another. It was like a contest to see who could smile the most. They never knew who was winning.
"Mmm, that's part of it. But really, it's like..." He paused. "Actually I don't even know how to explain it completely." He halted in thought for a few seconds, his brow wrinkling as he tried to gather his words. "It's kind of like being away at college and then going home and having my mom cook my favorite meal. It's just this big feeling of satisfaction." He explained, smiling at his metaphor. "You leave me satisfied, as cheesy as that sounds."
Zaria gazed at him unabashedly, her dark lashes brushing at her cheek occasionally as she blinked. It was sweet. Slightly cheesy, but sweet and appreciated by Zaria. She wasn't quite sure of what to do at first. Would a hug be sufficient after these words traded between them? Would a kiss do? They hadn't been dating long enough for her to just completely lose herself with him.She kept it simple and opted for a kiss on the cheek, followed by her hand in place of her lips. She wasn't sure if she had words to respond that wouldn't sound empty or fake.
They sat there for a while, just staring back and forth at each other, blue wrestling brown, her hand still against the stubble that was beginning to form on his cheek.
And then they laughed.
Quiet but unrestrained laughter that floated from each, melodically in tune with the other. Everything about them seemed to fit together.
"I don't even know why we're laughing." Justin managed to utter through his chuckling fit.
Zaria smiled. She didn't know why they were laughing either. It was just one of the many things they did that just seemed right when they were together. It was things like laughing for no reason that kept her from having to think about other things--the more fucked up things in her life. "I like you Justin." She leaned towards him and kissed him slowly, sweetly, sending both their worlds into euphoric territory.
What exactly was fucked up in Zaria's world?
It goes like this.
When she was 13, her younger brother Raymond was been playing in the front yard with some friends. Nothing serious, just a game of catch with a baseball. Nothing serious when the ball rolled into the street. Nothing serious until an unassuming Raymond went to retrieve the ball and got clobbered by a speeding car.
Then it was serious.
It was serious when he died in his hospital bed later on that night too.
Just as serious as three years after her brother's death, her mother, suffering from severe depression, took her own life by overdosing on sleeping pills prescribed by her doctor. Imagine Zaria's surprise when she came home from school, went to check on her mother and found her cold and lifeless in bed. It was the most chilling thing in her life. Raymond's death was a little easier to swallow. It wasn't his fault or anything he'd done that killed him. Her mother's, though, was something completely different. It had been a battle for control between her and her demons, and her demons had won.
And now Zaria's dad was getting remarried. To the kind of woman you want your father marry. She was pretty and smart, and nice... but she wasn't Zaria's mother. She'd thought her father would see how much his being romantically involved with another woman would hurt her. After all the time she and her father had spent together, learning to talk about and remember their dead, learning to love each other on a deeper level than either had thought possible. After learning to live with loss.
After all that, she though he would understand. But he didn't. Or if he did, he overlooked it.
She was angry with her father.
She used to be angry about a lot of things, but she had learned to live and love life. Now she was just angry over this one thing. Over her father's lack of respect for her dead mother and his dead wife. She was very angry.
She hadn't told Justin much of this. All he knew was that her mother was dead and her father was getting remarried though she was ticked off about it. At least, she thought that was all he knew. Sometimes he seemed to be on to the fact that she wasn't telling him everything.
She didn't know if, or when, she would tell him the full stories of her past. She wasn't sure she'd reached that level of confidence with him yet. Their admission of feelings for each other was one thing, the admission One would never know to look at her that she'd lost two very important people in her life. She carried on now with so much vivacity and enthusiasm for life that it was hard to see the dark stains on her heart. But they were there.
And sometimes, if you looked hard enough, you could see them behind her smile.
