India makes the chilly walk back to the dormatories alone. Well could you call it alone, when someone is walking with you, hand in hand, but completley silent?

Her mind was a mess, trying to wrap itself around the talk she just had with Jesse in that coffee shop. They spent two hours talking, or more accuratley thirty minutes talking and an hour and half sitting in silence.

She wanted to say something, a lot of things, but at the same time she wanted to be as far a part from him as possible. She needed time to think about this, about their relationship, about the upcoming semester, about what she was doing with her life.

No.

She shook her head, ridding herself of that thought.

She knew what she was doing with her life. She's known since she was in the seventh grade. Graduate high school, go to college, intern, go to more college, intern more, graduate college, get a job.

But Jesse . . . well he didn't fit anywhere in that equation. He came out of no where, like a flash of lightning, and just now India is feeling the thunder following him.

Everything was figured out for her, but then she met Jesse and he ruined everything.
But she could't blame him. She wanted to thank him actually.

She always knew there was a world out there waiting for her, but only when she met Jesse did she know there was a world inside of her, waiting for her.

She has learned things about herself she never knew. She likes the music where you scream, as well as the songs that make you want to shake your butt too. There are so many more cuss words then she could imagine.

And she's strong too.

Never before could she talk back to her father like she did.

"Watch me," she said as she drove away, leaving her father behind in the driveway.

She absentmindly clasped Jesse's hand tighter in hers. She loved him, she tried explaning that a thousand different ways in the coffee shop, and his answer?

Nothing.

A grateful smile and that's all.

But nothing in return.

She kept telling him, and telling him, in hopes of something along the same lines would come from his lips. But he kept quiet.

They arrived at the door of the dormatories, where a security guard was standing to the side of, waiting to see India's ID.

After the talk that led no where, India realized it would be good to stay at the dormotories for the night, to get her head together. Hopefully, tomorrow she would have a clearer mind and know how to express the many thoughts racing through her head.

"Can I take you out to get breakfast tomorrow," Jesse asked, with his eyes focused on a pebble beneath his foot.

"I don't know Jesse," India mumbled, just as nervous. It felt as if they had taken five steps back in their relationship and was starting at the beginning again. "Maybe we should spend some time apart."

It looked like Jesse got the wind knocked out of him by a cannon. His body took the impact, sending him a step back, leaving India's hand empty and cold. He took a deep breath in, his shoulders rising to his ears before dropping.

"Okay," he breathed out, barely loud enough for India to hear. "Okay," he said again clearer.

It was India's turn now to be hit by the impact.

He wasn't fighting for her. Usually, he would beg and prode to change her mind, but this time he wasn't. He was letting her walk away.

That hurt more than shoving him away.

"I'll uh." Her eyes wandered around and around, avoiding the space that Jesse took up.

"Call me," he finished for her, a small sad smile on his lips. She nodded her head, glancing into his eyes breifly. Stare too long into those blue worlds and she could be lost forever.

"Goodnight baby," he whispered, kissing her cheek. He turned and walked away, back into the large masses of New York at night.

With each step he took, the crack in her heart grew larger and larger.

His heart was different though.

When they met, his heart was already beaten up, cracked, scarred, burned, pieces were missing and it was starting to look more like a garbage can than a heart. But slowly, as the weeks passed, as he shared smiles and laughs with India, then kisses and touches, then secrets and memories, his heart started to form together again.

It was covered in band aides, stictches, bruises, and posts to keep it standing up right, but it was getting better.

Except, with every step he took away from the girl who was pushing him away, the stiches started to fall out, the bandaids were losing their adhesive, and the posts were starting to bend under the pressure.

He loved her. God did he love her. He couldn't live with out her, but no words could ever give his feelings justice. She deserved more than just words. She deserved actions, evidence, something not a lot of people recieve.

It hurt to think about giving India space, but Jesse knew that he should follow her best wishes. Whether he liked it or not.

He turned onto one of the many bustling streets of New York, blending into the crowd. Slowly, the rain began to fall, then it came all at once.

People pulled out their umbrellas, warding off the wet summer weather, but Jesse welcomed it. He basked in the darkness, the wetness, the sadness.

Jesse didn't belong to sunshine and blue skies, people like him belonged to rainstorms and darkness.

A crack of lightning lit up the sky, basking his world in brightness for a second before turning the world dark once again. A heart beat passed before the thunder followed, vibrating the ground beneath Jesse's feet.

A small smile creeped along his lips.