Epilogue

Ellie sat on the floor of Gordie's room. It was Sunday afternoon; they had agreed two years ago that they would always do their homework together on Sunday. Even though Ellie was in twelfth grade and Gordie only in tenth, she often found that he was able to help her with questions that she had.

After hearing a noise on the windows, Ellie looked up and smiled.

"Look, it's raining," she said and pointed at the window.

Gordie, frustrated at the disruption, looked up quickly and then focused back on his Algebra homework. "I don't really like rain so much."

"Why not," Ellie asked, slightly offended. "It's absolutely beautiful."

"Whenever it rains," Gordie explained, "I have to stay inside."

Ellie sighed and looked back down at her own homework. "You can't take something like that for granted. One day it's going to stop raining and it's not going to come back," she said quietly.

Being just as naive as I had been when I was twelve, I thought that we actually were talking about the rain.

"That's impossible, Elle," Gordie said matter-of-factly. "Rain is part of the water cycle and something like that doesn't just stop."

Ellie smiled slightly and looked up. "I guess you're right."

Ellie graduated from high school as valedictorian and planned on following through on her acceptance to the University of Oregon. She had hopes of studying Biology and becoming a doctor.

I remembered the conversation we had had about the rain on the night that Ellie told me that she would be leaving for college the next day. It was then that I realized that she had been talking about herself the whole time. Or maybe it was something deeper than that. Maybe she was trying to tell me that nothing lasts forever.

Gordie woke up from a tapping at his window. Groggily he got up and opened the window, faintly seeing red hair that he knew belonged to Ellie. She smiled and came through the window. As she was sitting next to him on his bed, Gordie was ashamed for the first time of the cowboys on his pajamas.

Neither spoke for what seemed like hours but in reality was only minutes.

"I'm leaving for college tomorrow," Ellie broke the silence.

The two looked at each other with obvious sadness.

"I don't know if I'll ever see you guys again," Ellie said as her eyes started to water.

"You'll still come home over the summer," Gordie said awkwardly. He had never had to comfort a crying girl before.

"But that's just it," Ellie said. "My parents are moving to Salem and I'll probably never get to come back here."

For the first time in his life, Gordie had no idea what to say. The two simply looked at each other, hoping that the other would say something. Before they could register what was happening, their faces were inching closer to the other's. Shirts were unbuttoned, clothes came off, and Ellie, who knew what to do, straddled Gordie. The only sounds that could be heard were the bed's light creaking and their deep, heavy breathing.

Ellie was the first girl I was ever with. She was surprisingly patient with me and for that I was grateful. In college when I got my first steady girlfriend, I was much more confident about the act of sex because I had done it before and with someone that I did love.

The day after Ellie left, Chris was telling his brother about how proud he was for Ellie going on to college. Somewhere down the line Eyeball decided that he was absolutely in love with her and almost immediately moved to Eugene.

He kept following her wherever she went and said that he would only leave her alone if she agreed to go on one date with him. Not reciprocating his feelings, Ellie initially told him to fuck off but eventually obliged after he showed up at her dorm. That one date turned into quite a few and he asked her to marry him right before she started her second year. After frequently asking for second opinions from Chris and I, she accepted his proposal. Chris was always proud that it had been Ellie who turned his brother into a responsible human being.

Out of all my childhood friends, Ellie was the only one that I kept in touch with. I often feel that she was the first person to see me, actually see me. She was beautiful, physically and mentally.