The room was dim—quiet except for the soft hum of the fan and their uneven breathing. Joel's eyes lingered on Vanessa like she was a language he'd been trying to learn for years.
She leaned in, just slightly, and their lips met again. Slower this time. Softer.
Vanessa's hand rested gently on the side of his neck, fingers curling against his skin as the kiss deepened. Joel's hands slid around her waist, not pulling—just holding. Holding like he didn't want to take anything, just be close enough to feel her exist.
And for the first time in a long time, her body didn't flinch.
It leaned in.
Her lips parted as their mouths moved together, breath catching as Joel gently pressed her back onto the mattress. He hovered over her, his hand brushing the side of her face, trailing down her arm, grounding her with every slow, aching touch.
There was nothing rushed.
Only heat.
Only permission.
Only the kind of closeness that makes you feel like your skin might finally be yours again.
Vanessa's fingers slid beneath the hem of Joel's shirt, feeling the lines of his stomach. He gasped lightly against her mouth, and the sound sent a warm thrill down her spine. Their bodies moved together, a slow tangle of tension and yearning, as if every inch they closed between them unraveled something they'd both been holding in for too long.
Joel kissed her neck—soft, reverent. His hand slipped beneath her shirt, fingers ghosting over her waist, the contact so light it made her hips shift on instinct.
And her body responded.
For a moment, it was just two people rediscovering desire—not for pleasure alone, but for safety. For freedom. For connection.
His lips found her collarbone. Her breath caught again.
But then—
In a blink, the world shifted.
The weight on her.
The pressure of a body.
The scent—Joel's cologne, sweet and woody—twisted into something else. Something familiar.
Something vile.
Her mind didn't see Joel anymore.
It saw him.
Durojaiye's shadow rose like smoke behind her eyes. The smirk. The hands. The lies.
And suddenly, her body wasn't responding anymore—it was panicking.
"No—" she gasped, eyes flying open. "Get off—Joel, stop!"
Joel pulled back immediately, eyes wide, hands in the air. "Vee! It's me—it's just me—"
Journal Entry – October 10
"Every new beginning feels like standing at the edge of a cliff. There's excitement, yes—but also the fear of falling. I look around me, and all I see are faces that know what they want. And then there's me—just trying to hold on."
The university campus was a storm of noise and movement—a place where the world felt both impossibly big and strangely small. Girls in bright dresses laughed in tight circles, clutching their phones with manicured fingers. Groups of boys joked loudly, their voices echoing off the towering lecture halls. There was a constant hum in the air, a feeling that something was always about to happen.
But for Vanessa, the world moved in quiet moments, in the spaces between the noise. She sat on a stone bench beneath a tree, the afternoon sun casting long, lazy shadows on the ground. The branches above her swayed in the breeze, rustling like whispers. Her fingers brushed the edge of the journal she held, the one with the worn leather cover, the one that held everything she couldn't say out loud.
She glanced at the pages, hesitant. The ink had become her voice, but today, it didn't feel enough. Words didn't seem to do justice to the weight she carried.
Vanessa's dark hair fell around her face in soft waves, framing a face that people often described as beautiful—high cheekbones, full lips, dark brown eyes that seemed to hide secrets. Her skin was a deep, rich shade of brown that glowed under the sun. Yet, despite what others saw, Vanessa often felt like a stranger in her own body, as though her appearance belonged to someone else.
She sighed and pulled her bag tighter around her shoulders. The weight of it was strangely comforting, the little bits of her life packed inside—books, pens, and a half-empty bottle of water.
She stood up, dusting off the seat of her jeans. The campus was bustling around her, but the noise seemed to fade into the background. Everything felt distant, like she was looking at it all from behind glass.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket, pulling her from her thoughts. She didn't check it right away. She knew it would be another message—a "Hi" from a classmate, a "How are you?" from someone who didn't really want to know. It wasn't that she didn't have friends. It wasn't that she didn't appreciate the gestures. But Vanessa had learned something in her years of growing up—the kind of learning that didn't come from textbooks or professors.
It was the quiet realization that she was often alone even in a crowd.
As she walked through the narrow paths leading to the lecture hall, she could hear the muffled conversations and the shuffle of feet. Students moved like clockwork, each person fixed on their destination. But Vanessa? She felt like she was walking through life in slow motion. Everything was happening around her, but not to her. Not with her.
The lecture hall loomed ahead, its modern architecture sharp against the blue sky. She pushed open the door and stepped inside. The room was already half-filled. She found a seat near the back, settling down with a quiet sigh. The familiar hum of the projector starting up. The murmur of voices. It was the same every day—predictable. She liked the predictability. The routine.
But even here, in this place she was supposed to belong, she felt the ache of not quite fitting in. Not quite being seen.
Her professor, a tall man with glasses that always seemed to slide down his nose, walked to the front. He greeted the class, but Vanessa's thoughts drifted again, back to the quiet. The silence that seemed to follow her.