Picture this:

You're sitting outside in the rain. Why? Because you like the rain, that's why. It has some sort of calming effect. Like those nature CD's with the sounds of owls and the ocean on them. And it soothes you, because the rain is a constant in a world of variables. Although you might not know exactly when it is coming, you always know what it will be like. You know it's wet, and you know it drops from the sky. Because where else would it come from?

Your clothes are soaked and you're shivering to the bone. But you still feel alright. Because the rain makes you feel alive. You can feel it hitting you, and you like that. Sometimes, we all need to feel something.

I can always feel the rain.

"I cannot believe we're locked outside your house." I said to Bethany as we sat on her front steps.

"I thought I brought my key with me, I swear I did." She mumbled as she wrapped her arms tighter around herself.

"Well you obviously didn't." I said roughly. It was pouring rain outside and I was freezing and shivering my ass off.

"I'm sorry." She said as she looked at me. She frowned when she saw how I was shivering. "You're gunna catch pneumonia, come here." She opened her jacket wide so I could squeeze next to her.

Her body was warm and it was soft and I liked being so close to it. "I'm still mad."

I felt Bethany laugh next to me.

"It's not funny." I said seriously.

She kept on laughing like an idiot, her bangs plastered to her forehead. "I love you Spencer, you know that right?"

I turned my head to look at her. She had stopped laughing and she looked deadly serious. Because I was huddled in her jacket, I was extremely close to her. Her nose almost touching mine. "I know, I love you too B." I told her softly. So honest it was almost painful.

Bethany was the perfect best friend. She was loyal, and caring. She was unbearably sweet and plus she was absolutely gorgeous. But gorgeous in that way where you don't notice right away. The longer you look at her the more beautiful she gets.

Her green eyes were penetrating my blue ones and I saw her bite her lip. The rain was beating so hard against the sidewalk and the roof that I could barely hear my own heavy breathing. Or hers.

And then her nose touched mine, and then her lips were on mine. Soft lips on soft lips, gently caressing the others.

The moment is forever engrained in my memory. The sound of the rain. The smell of Bethany. The feel of her entwined with me, even though it was only her lips on mine.

When she pulled away suddenly, I saw her eyes squeezed shut hard. So hard it looked like it was hurting her.

"I'm so sorry." She whispered as she opened them. "I've just wanted to do that for a while."

I just stared at her. In shock. In paralyzing joy.

"Me too." I finally told her. "I did too B."

Her lips formed a smile and that's when I reached my hand to gingerly rub her chin and bring her face to mine once again.

We didn't speak about her boyfriend, Simon. We didn't speak about all the things we knew we had to speak about. We didn't speak about what we might, possibly, maybe, would become. We just sat together, in the pouring rain. Giving our hearts to each other through our lips.

"Spencer? What are you doing?" Ashley says to me as she runs up the front path of my house, covering her head from the rain with her jacket.

I snap my eyes open at the sound of her voice and watch her stand in front of me. It looks like she is contemplating on whether to drag my ass inside or just leave me.

"You're gunna get sick. Let's go in the house. Yeah?" She says hesitantly, reaching out her hand to me.

Normally I would say no. But her pretty brown eyes are looking nervous and worried. I take her soft hand and she pulls me up and we head inside.

Ashley throws me a blanket from the front closet as she sheds her soaked jacket.

"What were you doing?" She asks.

"I like the rain."

"I like the rain too, but I don't sleep in it." She shrugs.

I smile at her. "I wasn't sleeping. Just sitting."

"Oh." She says, walking into the kitchen. "Um, sorry."

"Don't be." I tell her as I sit down.

"You want coffee or hot chocolate or something?" She asks me as she bustles around the kitchen.

I watch her walk around my kitchen in an oversized sweatshirt and jeans that are very wet at the bottom. Something about her, her and her appearance, the way she talks and acts, seems very peaceful and calming. Sort of like the rain.

"You don't have to or anything."

Ashley shrugs, already getting out two mugs. "It's okay, I uh, like doing this sort of stuff."

"Hot chocolate would be good then." I tell her. "Harley has soccer practice, so he won't be home for a while…"

She turns to me. "Yeah I know. It's just. Well, I'm gunna sound like a loser, or something. But I don't have anything else to do. And your mom said I could come ever whenever. I mean, I don't come here when no one's home, that'd be kind of creepy. But she said you're usually here, so, yeah." She ends her rambling and bites her lip.

Ashley turns back around to boil the water on the stove.

"No, that's cool." I tell her.

She nods, wiping her hands on her jeans. "Did you wanna, go back out there or something?"

I chuckle at her and shake my head. "Nah."

It's about a half an hour later when my mother comes through the back door with Harley in tow. Ashley and I are still sitting in the kitchen. We had talked a little but mostly we just sat in a comfortable silence, reading the newspaper. She gave me the Comics while I handed her the Sports section. I told her to ditch her California teams and to go for the Yankees and the Devils or there'd be some serious ass kicking. I got a really cute laugh from her for that.

"Hey girls." My mother says with a large smile on her face.

"Hi Mrs. Carlin." Ashley says politely.

"Ashley!" Harley exclaims as he hugs Ashley while she's sitting. She smiles at him and runs a hand through his hair. "No fair, Spencer got to hang out with Ashley first. Mooooom." He complains.

"Here, have a juice box." Paula hands him some apple juice and he stops talking.

"You're home early." I say with a slight smile.

"Yeah, I got the rest of the day off. And I would let you go home Ashley, but it's raining really badly, I'd rather you wait out that storm. Is that alright?"

Ashley nods. "Yeah, that's fine. I don't really like driving in the rain."

My mother nods and gives me a kiss on the forehead. "How was your day Spencer?"

I shrug." Boring." I tap my fingers on the counter as my mother looks around the fridge for something. "You wanna go upstairs?" I ask Ashley as I turn to her.

"Uh, sure."

I lead her upstairs to my room and close the door behind me. I get a little embarrassed when I see that my room is a complete and utter disaster. It looks like that cow from Tornado stampeded around it. "Sorry, I'm kind of messy." I mumble as I start to pick up clothes from the floor and put them on a chair in the corner.

"It's okay. I've seen your brothers room, so."

"Oh yeah." I chuckle. "He is a slob."

Ashley stands still, looking around for a few moments. "He's like, really obsessed with dinosaurs." She says randomly. Her eyes are looking at the orange Lava Lamp I have set up on my desk.

"I know. He almost cried when I told him they were all dead."

Ashley laughs and takes a step forward.

"You can sit down." I motion to the bed where I am sitting. "I won't bite you, I swear. I know I come off that way, but…"

She smiles and nods her head. When she sits down on my bed I feel the mattress dip. "I have one of those too." She points to my Lava Lamp, which is swirling around and making the room glow. "It's uh, purple."

------

"Why did you move here?" I ask Ashley as we're laying on my bed, on our sides, facing each other. We have been engaging in a kind of intense round of a sort of 20 questions. Although we're not counting. Ashley's head is laying on a pillow as mine is propped up in my hand. Her brown, chocolate colored eyes have been pretty much the only thing I've been staring at for the last forty-five minutes.

"My mom." She says evenly. And it looks like she's going to continue. It has been a silent rule that if you don't want to embellish, you just stay quiet. "Her job makes her move around a lot. So we've been a lot places. I don't really like moving, so I hope we're done."

I have noticed that her slight nervousness and jagged words have disappeared somewhat as she became more comfortable.

I nod. "Been anywhere cool?"

She thinks for a second. "Alaska."

"Really?"

Ashley nods.

"How was it?" I ask her.

A smile forms on her lips. "Cold." She simply says and I laugh.

"Thanks Captain Obvious."

She smiles. "Okay, um, who was your first boyfriend?"

"Ugh, Paul in like sixth grade. He threw his milk carton at me when we broke up. Totally broke my heart."

"Rough." Ashley nods.

"Oh, it was. Hmmm." I think for a second. "Did you leave a boyfriend back home?"

Ashley shakes her head and I notice she kind of blushes. "No, I didn't." And I am surprised by this. Very surprised. I look at her with a confused face and she must notice, because her eyebrows scrunch together. "What?"

"I just, it's surprising I think. You're just kind of really pretty."

Her cheeks get red and she looks down before she looks back up again. Ashley's eyes meet mine and they sparkle with something fascinating. "What do you want to be when you're older?"

I smile at her child-like question. It's like when teachers used to ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up. And you would say a teacher, or a fireman, or an astronaut. But the way she says it is sweet and endearing. "I used to want to be an aquarium worker." I say seriously. "But now I have no idea at all."

Ashley nods and a tilted smile appears on her lips. "An aquarium worker?"

"Yeah, I don't know, I always thought they were really cool."

"Aquariums always scared me. Something about sharks being magnified by glass." Ashley says evenly.

I chuckle. "Well, I guess we've got nothing in common." I kid.

Ashley smiles a little more. "What about Breakfast at Tiffany's?"

I stare at her for a second, my eyes scrunched together, thinking what the fuck is she talking about? Then I smile, wide. "I think I, remember the film and as I recall, I think, we both kinda liked it."

"Well, that's the one thing we've got." Ashley says, a full grin on her face now.

We both laugh at the same time, and I am starting to love that huskiness that invades her laugh. It makes it so much warmer and comforting. And I know it's genuine. But the best thing about it is when my words can make it escape her mouth.

"Great song." I say, as I push my hair behind my ear.

Ashley nods. "I'm glad you knew it, 'cause then I'd just look dumb."

Just as I am about to ask Ashley another question, my mother yells up the stairs to us.

"Looks like the storm has cleared up Ashley you're…Harley would you please take those roller skates off!" My mother yells and I start to snicker as does Ashley.

"I should probably go." Ashley says as she gets up off my bed. "My mom asked me to make dinner tonight."

I hop off my bed and nod. "What're you making?" I ask her, purely because I'm curious.

"Maybe lasagna." She answers as we head down the stairs. I watch her curls bounce with every step she takes and it makes me kind of smile to myself.

------

"Spence, could you pick up that lamp Harley knocked over?" Paula asks me as I walk back into the kitchen. I find Harley skating through the house as I try to place the slightly cracked lamp back on a table.

"Isn't Ashley like, the prettiest girl ever?" He asks as he skates circles around me.

"Why are you roller skating in the house you weirdo?"

"It was raining." He says and rolls his eyes at me. "Isn't she though?" He insists.

"Yes, she's very pretty." I tell him to shut him up. And also because it's true.

"Thanks honey." My mother says as I take a seat on a stool. "I talked to your father again today."

"Mom." I deadpan, willing her to just drop it. My day was going well, I do not want it to be ruined. Please.

"He hinted at seeing you and, you know-"

"Paula." I repeat.

"Spencer." She says, looking at me dead in the eye. Her eyes are serious and I stay quiet. "Stop blaming this divorce on him."

I get up from my stool. "Why? He wanted it."

"That's true, but it was better off." She says calmly.

I feel my anger rising. "Yeah? Well why don't you tell him that it was fantastic timing, announcing you're leaving your family right after your daughter's best friend just died. Amazing timing."

My mom just stares at me, and I see a frown on her face. It makes me sad, that frown. Because I'm causing it and I feel so incredibly horrible. There are some times when I feel like I can do nothing right. The stinging pricks in my eyes are just making everything worse.

I push my stool back in. "Great. He's great. No wonder I have to take so many fucking anti-depressants."

"Spencer, come on." My mother says lightly. It's not like this is new to her. She's heard this before. And it's not new to me. I've heard it from myself before. And I am so sick of it being the truth.

------

The song Ashley and Spencer reference is Breakfast at Tiffany's by Deep Blue Something. It was kinda stuck in my head for some weird reason, so I put it in :)