A/N: I'm sorry I've been slow on this. Lack of internet as of now and writing is the most I can do and post as fast as I can in about twenty minutes. And I got a few complaints. So I'll fix that…

Disclaimer: plotline is Erin Hunter's. Characters are mine.

Cale blinked at me shortly as we headed to my house. "You know what?" he asked, reaching one hand up to ruffle his dark hair that had been plastered to his head by the pouring rain that was still coming down around us.

I knew I was soaked. I knew all my books were soaked. I knew my shoes were totally flooded in the rainwater. But somehow, I found the heart not to care about it. I tried to fluff my hair the best I could so it didn't look like I was a total drowned rat. Even though I knew I already did look like one. It was the way my hair worked.

"What?" I responded, trying to let him hear me over the pounding rain. My voice was still quieter than I would've liked.

"I'm thinking I like you," he told me, dark eyes darting in my direction as a smug grin worked its way onto his thin lips. Cale was staring at me with that smile for a long time, the rain pouring down his face.

I let my head tilt to one side. "Huh. Weird," I said, trying not to giggle. I loved hanging around with Cale all the time. He was fun and he was quirky and he smiled and he just didn't argue with me going with him anywhere. He accepted everything instead of questioning it.

The smug smile wiped itself right off his face and it was replaced with his lips turning into a straight line. "What?" he responded, voice a bit quaky and almost scared. I didn't want to call it scared, but that was what it sounded like.

And I let the same smug smirk that he had just worn crawl its way across my lips. "I was just thinking the exact same thing."

Instead of the sigh of relief I had expected, he made one hand into a fist and slugged me softly. It wasn't hard enough to hurt, but it was almost in a playful way. "You scared me, Leah," he laughed weakly, a smile coming on again. He looked at the puddles on the sidewalk then back at me. "Please don't try to do that to me."

"Oh, it's just sweet revenge for saving me from a car."

He laughed so hard. "You think that saving you from that car that nearly killed you deserves revenge?" He had to wipe tears from his eyes after laughing his guts out. Not literally, but enough that I saw that glimmer and twinkle of humor in his eyes. And those might not have been tears. It was raining and all.

"Yes," I replied with my sweetest smile.

He just shook his head and reached up to ruffle his hair once again. He always did that when he was nervous and it was hilarious because he always did it trying to look cool, but it just made him look like a nerd in his skater boy way, like he didn't know what he was doing even though he knew exactly what was going on.

In my eyes, Cale was hilarious. In his eyes, he was just a guy with too many thoughts in a head that couldn't hold all of them at once.

I found his dark eyes on me when I came out of my thoughts and a smile crept across his thin lips and he stared at the pavement for a few moments, shaking his head. "Leah, you totally zoned out again," he chuckled, the rain now running down his face, dripping off his hair and into his dark eyes. "Your eyes got all dreamy and you were off in La-La Land."

I found myself smiling shyly. "Cale, you can't blame it on me."

"Need revenge for something else?" he laughed as lightning flashed across the sky, striking something off into the distance, casting a shadowing glow onto the thick layers of clouds. "Like staring off into the distance?"

Without caring what I did, I lightly slugged his shoulder and let out a little giggle that I didn't know was possible for me. "You like me and then I get revenge for you saving me from my death and you're telling me you still like me even though I'm a total freak show?"

His dark eyes stared at the sky for a few minutes before he looked at me with his smirking grin and replying, "Yep, that's exactly what I'm saying." He walked a little closer to me. "You keep selling yourself short, you know that?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"You say you're a freak show and you're not. You act like you're surprised that I like a girl like you. And it's not that shocking when you're different from every other priss in this hell-hole of a town." He was staring at me with this strange sparkle in his eyes. "It's like you don't even know who you really are."

We were standing at the corner where we usually broke apart. The rain poured down around us and we were smiling back and forth at each other. I leaned against the signpost and stared at him silently before saying, "If I don't know who I am, then enlighten me."

He raised an arm above my head to lean on the post as well, bracing himself like the cool jocks usually did over their cheerleader chicks before they kissed them. Strangely enough, I should've been scared, but I wasn't. I just stood there because I knew Cale wasn't like those jocks and I wasn't like one of those cheerleaders. One of his hands reached up and brushed the strands of sandy blonde from my forehead so that the water stopped from running in my eyes. "Maybe I will." Then a smile appeared across his lips once more. "When it's not pouring down rain." He pushed off the signpost and headed down his street with a jog.

I sighed, knowing that I was a lucky girl. There was a pause in the splashing of his footfalls as he turned around and waved at me with delight. I saw him nearly slip and fall over, but all to easily, he caught himself and turned back and ran again, faster than before.

For a few moments, I stared up at the sky and leaned against that signpost with the biggest smile I'd had in a long time. Because Cale was now totally honest with me and I could feel it. The rain washed my face and the lightning flashed across the sky.

What a day…

A/N: Good chappie for you guys? Review please!

~Sky