now & forever

caught in the storm | samuel & diya

caught in the storm | samuel & diya

caught in the storm | samuel & diya

caught in the storm | samuel & diya

glory box | diya & sam

She tried to get a word in here or there: “You can’t just– Just listen… I do… You aren’t listening!” but to no avail. So Diya stood there, her foot tapping impatiently as she listened to him, feeling the blood beneath her flesh begin to boil. And then there it was. You’re a big fucking hypocrite… She was moving before she could process it, straight toward him. There was a moment’s pause. Her hand at her side rose as if to caress his cheek– and that was the exact moment where she slapped him with it. The force of the action left her palm stinging. He didn’t know. She couldn’t blame him for his assumption. He didn’t know. But none of that mattered, not right then and there. “Get out of my house.” The words were low. Quiet. A warning. She was furious, her reiteration escaping in a shriek. “Get out!” There was commotion outside the bedroom. Somebody hitting the wall next to the bed and shouting at her to shut up. Diya pointed an accusatory finger at Sam as she backed up, her eyes filling with tears. He didn’t know. He didn’t know that she’d signed away her pride, her shame, given it all up for him and everyone else she’d abandoned. “You don’t know what I’ve had to do! You don’t know a fucking thing about what I’ve done! What I… endured,” she turned her back to him, keeping her eyes shut. He could leave. The door was right there. And frankly, she didn’t want him to see her cry. She didn’t want anybody to see her weak. “Go and don’t come back.” Stay. “Leave.” Everyone does, one way or another. I would too. 

Samuel’s eyes widened as she slapped the side of his face. It stung like hell. It made the cut on his face burn once more. “How fucking..” He cut himself off, flinching as she screamed at him to leave. This wasn’t Diya. This wasn’t the Diya he loved. He walked towards her bedroom door, opening it before turning around to face her again. “You’re right. Everything’s different now. You’re different.” He was breathing hard, his own method of trying to suppress all the anger that he felt towards her in that given moment. “I don’t want to be with you anymore. Don’t want to get married. You just reminded me how fucking dead that dream is. How dead this is.” And that’s all Samuel said before he walked out of her bedroom, slamming the door. One of her roommates was there, staring at him oddly. “What?” Samuel growled, shoving to the front door before he slammed that, too.

glory box | diya & sam

“Oh, Sam,” she moaned, defeated. It was late. She was exhausted. Whatever sweetness she harbored was spent for the day. She took his wrists gently in her hands, pulling her face away from him. “You aren’t listening to me!” Diya got onto her feet, hands on her hips as if to make her seem bigger than she really was. “I don’t want… I don’t want a cheap knockoff of what we had! I don’t want you to look at me like I’m the most divine thing on the planet– Sam I’m as far from that as it it gets! I need you to wake the fuck up for a second. I…” What did she even want from him? Frustrated, she didn’t realize that the volume of her voice had risen. “I’m bad for you. Everything I touch, I ruin. Shit, I ruined you eight years ago! I ruined your attempt at cutting me out of your life that lasted for all of three days. And all it took was three words to bring you back to me, to break your will, and somehow I’ll ruin you again. That’s how I work. That’s how I operate. I don’t get good things anymore.” They took that away from her. Diya thought momentarily of the dreams they’d shared. The ones she knew had to be let go. Her voice turned quieter, soft as she let her arms go limp and her shoulders sag. “You aren’t going to marry me one day. I wouldn’t let you. That’s not my dream anymore.” But oh, how she wished it could be…

Samuel didn’t understand. He watched as she stood to her feet, her voicfe much iffrent than he’d ever heard before. Diya didn’t typically raise her voice. "You don’t want a cheap knockoff?” He socffed, standing to his feet. “Then what about that prick you almost married? Or whatever the hell happened.” Samuel laughed dryly, shaking his head as he glued his eyes down to the floor. He couldn’t even look at her when he was speaking to her like this. God. So what the fuck did this even mean? “So, what then? You telling me you loved me tonight was just to fuck me up even more? I don’t get it. Why you’d do something like that.” He was mad now. He clenched his fists, finally looking up at her. “Yeah, yeah. I fucking got it. We aren’t getting married. You don’t love me like that anymore. I’ve heard you say that shit enough,” he snapped. Samuel couldn’t understand why she was being like this. Why she was so stubborn about simply letting him love her. “And, you know what? You’re a big fucking hypocrite, too. Saying what you said about the Montgomerys all those years ago. And now you’re fucking working for them.”

glory box | diya & sam

“Don’t apologize for your thoughts, Samuel.” She sighed, falling back against the mattress, staring up at the stucco on the ceiling. “I love you.” For eight years I’ve loved you. Not once did I ever stop. She tried to find patience in her words, but feared that they would sound all too much like she was talking down to him. “But I… I don’t love you the way that I did when we were seventeen. There’s just so much time between us, you know? And I want to fill in the blanks. I want to know you again, I want to be your best friend again. It’s not pathetic to hold on to hope, sometimes it’s all we have, but it is pathetic to think that we can just pretend like no time’s passed us by at all.” She extended a leg, her foot brushing his lower back. Somehow it felt like she was using all the wrong words. It was hard to craft sentences like she used to, spinning them brilliantly and fantastically around them both. 

Samuel couldn’t help but smile as she told hims he loved him. God, after eight years, hearing those words would never get tiring. They were a blessing fro God himself. Hearing what came after that made him wince. ut at least she still loved him. So there was hope to hold on to. He nodded silently, clearing his throat. He turned to face her all the way both hands cupping the side of her face. “Diya, I love you so much. I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll wait. Be your best friend. I just want us to be together again. We don’t have to pick up where we left off. We can start again...” he smiled, brushing his thumbs against the side of her face. “I still want to marry you one day.” God. It was bold to say that. But it was true. He needed her to know that he wasn’t messing around about this. 

glory box | diya & sam

“I don’t.” She was almost shocked by how quickly she’d responded. There were two problems with there being a ‘them’. The first being the Montgomerys. The second being that when Diya looked at Samuel, she saw somebody she only knew in partial. She had exes who she knew better than this version of the boy she loved, and it made her sick. “We aren’t… Sam, we aren’t together like that… I need to fall in love with you all over again before I can start thinking about there being an ‘us’.” This was stressing her out. Her voice grew strained. “I don’t know you. I look at you and I see a boy I loved, but I don’t know the man he’s turned into… And, honestly, it would just be pathetic if either of us thought that we could just start where we left off. It’s not realistic. You know that, right?”

Samuel felt frustrated. What more was there to do? He’d tried everything. And it still wasn’t fucking enough. “You need to fall in love with me again?” He repeated, scoffing. It was fucking absurd. “You told me you loved me. In the bathroom. What the fuck, Diya?” He asked, running a hand through his hair. “It’s not pathetic to hold on to hope. To still be in love with you.” Samuel bit his tongue, afraid that he’d say too much. Afraid that he’d upset her. “I’m sorry, he said quietly, although he felt like he wasn’t the one that should have been apologizing. 

glory box | diya & sam

In the privacy of her room, she could give in to him a little bit. She leaned into his touch, sighing. “Not a day went by where I wasn’t,” she told him honestly. A moment passed. Diya stepped back, kicking dirty clothing under her bed, pulling the comforter up so that it looked half decent. She sat on the corner of the bed, staring down at her hands. They’d been thin and soft once, scholarly. She wouldn’t have been able to recognize them now. “You can’t live with your head constantly going back to the past, Sam.” Her voice sounded tired. God was she tired and it had nothing to do with sleep. “Asking about eight years ago. Talking about thirteen years ago. It doesn’t work that way, Love, it can’t.”

Samuel sighed, watching as she kicked clothing under her bed and tried to make the place look decent. He didn’t care. His room was worse. He sat down on the bed next to her, one hand on her leg. “What else am I supposed to do, Di? I miss you... I miss us. I can’t just forget about you after being together for that long.” Samuel felt upset, but only because she was being honest. Because it was all true. “I’m just glad youre here again. So we can work on us. Work on making you happy again. You want that, right?” He asked, searching for her hands in the dimly lit room. 

glory box | diya & sam

“Don’t be like that.” Diya didn’t look back at him as she ventured into the building, approaching the elevator and pressing the button for the fourth floor. “I’m never happy, Sam,” she said faintly, stepping in once the doors had parted. Waiting until he was inside the elevator with her before she spoke again. Her head rested against one of the panneled walls, watching him as they traveled upward. “He treated me fine. It was two years ago. I didn’t love him like that.” Those words again. Too familiar. “Don’t act like I’m a bad person for trying to feel good again.” The doors parted again and without another word,Diya slipped into the hall, following the familiar route to her door. She unlocked the door, holding it open for him. A girl with hot-pink hair slept fast asleep on a couch. The sounds of sleep resonated through the dirty apartment as Diya walked toward the only door within the suite that remained shut via a lock. She unlocked it too, held it open again. Her bedroom. Like most of her life, also a mess. 

I’m never happy. Samuel sighed, wanting to comment on that, but he didn’t. Not yet, at least. He walked in to her apartment, making note of the girl asleep on the couch. Normally, he would’ve said hi, but she was sleeping. And he already felt out of place. He followed Diya into her room. It was... a lot different. Unlike her bedroom when they were growing up. It felt darker. “Hey, you were happy when we were together. Right?” He asked softly, cupping the side of her face. 

glory box | diya & sam

“Ugh…” She sighed when he pulled her door open, his sarcasm nothing more than a means to irritate her. “What is it that you think I did for the past eight years, Sam? Lie on my sibling’s couch feeling sorry for myself?” That was one thing that she’d gained in her eight years away from people she cared about. Her verbal jabs had become far more personal. “Surprising as this may be for you, I actually did things with my time. I tried to live. I was twenty-seven. He was in love with me. He proposed–” Diya slammed the car door shut behind her, forcing the distance between them to grow short as she unzipped one of the pockets on her bag, pulled out a ring of keys. “– And I said no. It’s nothing.”

“I didn’t lay on my brother’s couch for eight years feeling sorry for myself,” he clarified sharply, wondering where the fuck all of the attitude was coming from. “Well, good for you. Glad you almost got your happy ending,” he muttered silently, following her into the building. What was he even doing there? The way she was acting... it almost felt like he wasn’t even welcomed anymore. Still, Samuel pushed through, hoping that things would be better once they were inside. “Did he make you happy? Treat you right?” Samuel asked lowly. He knew the answers to those questions would hurt, but he had to ask, regardless. He needed to know. 

glory box | diya & sam

“I don’t very much like dogs,” Diya admit, aware that it was a change in opinion from eight years ago. She bit down on her lip, averting her gaze, letting it wander out the window nearest her right side. “I had an incident with one a couple years back. One of my roommates got a Great Dane that didn’t like me much– stupid, getting such a big dog. Bit me. Haven’t been a fan ever since.” She thought back on his words. Worked for a few years… dated around… “What did you do for work?” Did she really care? Of course she did, but she wanted to ask about the women he’d dated. Had they somehow resembled her? Or were they stark contrasts– blatant attempts at grinding her out of his system? “I worked as a bartender, met one of my exes that way.” What was she trying to prove? That she had done it too? The next detail was irrelevant, but it felt wrong to keep it a secret from him: “He tried to marry me.”

He laughed when he heard that she didn’t like dogs. That wasn’t totally true. “Well, the dog I get won’t be mean, I swear.” And that’s all he said. He listened as she spoke about working as a bartender. It wasnt like her. And then she dropped another fucking bomb on him. She almost got married? Samuel had just pulled into the parking lot of the building she lived on. He stayed quiet as he turned the engine off. “What?” He asked, unable to pull his eyes away from the steering wheel. He felt angry. Jealous. She wouldn’t marry him, but she’d consider marrying someone she barely knew? He got out of the car silently, walking around to open the door for her and grab her bags. “That’s great,” he said sarcastically. “That’s nice. Perfect.” 

glory box | diya & sam

Samuel winced, nodding once before walking around to his side of the vehicle. He got in, started it, and decided not to say much on the way there. He just drove. Until she spoke first. “But I did miss you,” he told her, reaching over with one hand and resting it on her leg. She was so tense. “I got a great job in upstate New York. Worked there for a few years. They let me go in August,” he shrugged, making a turn as they neared her place. “I dated around some. Or tried to...” Was that appropriate? He let it go. “Other than that, not much. Thinking about getting a new dog,” he mumbled, shrugging. “Rafael’s pees everywhere. What do you think? You can help me pick one out.” He grinned, glancing at his rear view mirror as he drove. 

glory box | diya & sam

“And what am I going to do with a hotel room, Sam?” She didn’t mean to sound so short with him, but her words were blunt regardless. If he thought she was some sort of charity case in need of saving, he was desperately wrong. . “I’ve been in the same apartment for three years– living comfortably, I should add–” Diya paused, released his hand when she noticed that there were too many people around. Too many people who could assume too much. “I’ll meet you at your car, all right? I need to grab a few things.” Without giving him time to argue, she had already slipped away, heading for the dressing room to collect her things. There was a sinking feeling in her solar plexus.

Samuel frowned when she snapped at him, pulling away entirely and suggesting that they should just meet at his car. “That’s not what I meant. I... alright,” he mumbled, glancing around Ephesus before heading out to the back parking lot. He stood there, waiting by the passenger’s side until Diya came back out. He had decided that he wouldn’t let her attitude change the way he felt abut that night. It was good. So, he stood there, smiling when she came back outside. He helped her with her bags before opening the door for her. He grinned. “Maybe we can pick back up where we left off when we get to your place,” he suggested playfully, lightly kissing her temple. 

glory box | diya & sam

She kept her eyes on the ground as they moved past him, not daring to say a word. She understood. That was the worst part, how she understood what Rafael was doing. Were it her and one of her siblings, she would have done everything in her power to keep them from experiencing the same heartbreak they already had. A ball of regret began to form in the pit of her stomach. She shouldn’t have told Samuel that she loved him. She shouldn’t have let him almost screw her in the bathroom of all places. She shouldn’t have allowed any of this to happen. And if this somehow put Sam in danger… God, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself. “We can go to my place,” Diya told him quietly once they’d gotten out of the bathroom, eyes scanning the halls to make sure nobody was paying them any mind. “Talk a little or something.”

Samuel walked out holding Diya’s hand, keeping close to her as they walked past a small crowd of people. When she suggested they go to her place, he simply nodded. “Okay...” he began, sighing. “Are you sure? We don’t have to go to your place. I don’t mind getting us a hotel for a couple of nights...” he trailed off. Rafael would get over it. That much he knew. In a couple of days, they could go back to Rafael’s place and it would all be fine. Now that they were together. Or something. 

glory box | diya & sam

She did a lot of things. Diya stared at her feet as Rafael listed them off, silently crouching down to pick up Sam’s shirt and extending it to him. She’d done a lot of things to this man when he had still been a boy. She’d broken his heart. Broken her own heart too in the process… “Stop it,” Diya said, feeling that familiar stinging in her eye that had been present the last time she and Rafael spoke. She bit back a snarky remark about his couch, keeping herself behind Sam. Maybe this was why security had been so shitty when she went out into the alley. Rafael despised her and she couldn’t even blame him for it. Not really.

Samuel slid back into his shirt, turning his back on Rafael. “Don’t listen to him. I know you love me,” Samuel said, hearing Rafael scoff in response. It had taken a lot for him not to hit Rafael. But it had been a long night, and his knuckles were already injured from before. He grabbed Diya by the hand, walking up to Rafael. “Mama would be so fucking disappointed at how you just spoke to Diya. No matter what she did to me.” That’s all Samuel said before shoving past Rafael.