He didn't know it, of course, but she had seen him tilt back his head and taste of the rain.
He had listened. Really listened. No one other than her family had done that in a long, long time. She smiled to herself. Satisfied that despite the odds and years of existing in a world apart from others, she had finally found a friend.
She thought joyfully of all the experiences and adventures she could share with him. He'd probably never noticed that if you pay close enough attention you can catch the day that marks the beginning of spring – one day the tress are bare and naked and the very next day they are gowned with emerald jewels on the tips of each branch. If you see the buds on that day, before the jewels are born, then you've witnessed the moment when a season changes. She couldn't wait to share that moment and watch his face as he recognized the novelty of it.
In her exhilaration, everything felt as if she were experiencing it for the first time. She tasted the rain again yet anew. It tasted of liquid coolness, refreshingly cool yet almost stale from the exhaust in the air. The exhaust added spiciness. Another person might have considered it sad, that rain should taste like fumes from metal engines, but not she. No, to her, it was merely part of what rain tasted like. It was like the glow of street lamps late at night, when you can see the contrast between the flickering fireflies on stems against the inky blackness of space. She didn't reflect on the fact that the street lamps were the reason she couldn't see the fiery stars. She admired only the incandescence of the smoldering bulbs melt into the watery edges of the night fall.
As she looked back she could see him walking, head down, glowing. The lamp light reflected upon his back ever so faintly as he disappeared into the dripping darkness. The effect of the rainfall combined with the last bit of glow from the lamp was not unlike that of watching one walk into a waterfall, less visible with each inch of movement.
When he became invisible, Clarisse turned and twirled lightly, weightless with the image of Montag tasting raining for the first time and the sound of ceaseless drops. Her foot slipped slightly on the slick pavement and she crumpled like a rag doll in the middle of the street. Over the sound of her laughter at herself, she didn't hear the car approaching. As the car crashed into her, the image of Montag circulated like a slowly spinning, soon to fall, top. She felt a brief moment of fiery pain and then only the tingly sensation of water droplets falling.