As Cleansing as Rain

I sucked in a deep breath, filling my lungs with air, and released it slowly.  I had to calm down.  I must.  If I didn't, I'd hyperventilate again, and that couldn't happen.  I wouldn't let it happen.  Too many attacks could send my blood pressure through the roof, and that could land me in the hospital again.  Somehow, someway, I had to calm myself down.

This was the first time I had to try it on my own.  Before, I always had my mom wrapping her arms around me in a warm embrace, rocking me back and forth, both of us crouched together on the floor of my room.  This was the first time I didn't have her cool fingers smoothing my hair away from my forehead and behind my ears, her light blue eyes holding my gaze steadily while her love cleansed me of all the impure emotions crashing through my soul.

That boy, I thought furiously to myself as I stomped about, lighting candles angrily, my hands shaking with untamed fury.  That babbling, stupid boy!  So ignorant!  What an attitude problem… how could he say those things to me?  We had connected so well, and… then…

My eyes flashed, hard and impenetrable as stone.  I knew I was headed towards the deep end, and if I didn't make a visible effort to control my feelings, I was going to go flying off the diving board before I was ready.

I drew in a breath.  The candles on the plate I was squatting in front of flickered and leaned toward me, as if eagerly awaiting some terrific secret.  I smiled at that comparison.  Good, a smile!  That was a start.  I stared intensely at the flickering little yellow heads bobbing toward me, the little points of their flame like tiny mohawks.  I felt my heart slow down and my breathing even out.  There, that was better…

I eased my legs out from beneath me and turned so that I was sitting Indian-style in the middle of the room.  My bed rose above me to the left, pushed against two walls in a corner.  To my right was a bookcase, and I pulled out a thick volume of poetry that I didn't usually bother with.  It was a collection of obscure artists writing about joyful topics such as love, delight, appreciation, and the like.  Normally such work didn't appeal to my dramatic sense of doom when I was in a candle-lighting, poetry-reading, dark kind of mood.  But this book now compelled me; I needed some comfort and peace in my life right now before I tried to handle that boy again.

I cracked open the binding to some random page in the center.   Focusing on the words, I concentrated on making out the script in the wavering light.

"And the wind rushes

The surf pounds

The rain drums

When I see him

The heat crackles more between us

Than between the logs in the fire

Electricity is a visible Presence

That can be cut like butter

His eyes as green as emeralds

Shining, burning with radiance

Mine as melted chocolate

Sinking slowly in his gaze"

Slowly, I set the book down and slid it away from me.  What kind of cruel, cold joke was the universe playing on me?  The first poem I opened up to, in a desperate search to forget about Harry, was so presumptuous as to blare out everything I had felt for him since I first laid eyes on him?  It was arrogant enough to remind me of how those stupid eyes had melted me from the first minute I looked into that British face?

"I'm talking crazy," I mumbled to myself, folding my arms loosely in my lap.  I stared morosely at the book of poetry, still open to those eerie words.  "Poems don't presume, they don't remind, and they're not arrogant…"

My long hair hung in front of my shoulders.  I pushed it roughly behind my ears and stood up, beginning to pace.  The candle flames followed my movements in flicks and whispers as I moved past them.  "Char, you're outta your mind.  You saw what happened to him when he read that letter.  Whatever was in it changed him.   He's mixed up in some crazy stuff, Char.  You don't wanna be a part of that—"

My face whipped up as I heard myself speak these words outloud.  Shaking the thought out of my head, I corrected myself outloud.  "Yes I do!  I do, though.  I want to be mixed up in it, with him…"

I sat down on my bed suddenly.  Amidst the wrinkled, mused bedding, I grimaced.  "Kid, you sound like a raving, lovesick school girl.  That Potter is cold.  Stuck up.  As unbreakable as ice…" my voice trailed off.  I knew that no amount of convincing was going to work.  I was a goner; I'd fallen for him.  There was no denying it.  First, it had just been pure attraction.  His incredible smile, narrow cheeks, and youthful, lively eyes.  That voice, so lilting and smooth.  But… it was more, after that.  Something had happened to him that made him vulnerable, but tough.  Something had hardened him, but left him defenseless.  It was a crazy and maddening circle with no conclusion, but yet, I knew what it felt like because I was caught in the same circle.  I had experienced life on the edge, too… and I had come back from it to survive.

But how can you have survived when you haven't really been living? I argued to myself.  Sure, you go through the motions.  School, work, painting, reading your poetry… hanging out with Kaye and Jodi.  But what is it, really, when you haven't felt life flowing through your veins for the longest time?  When you haven't felt that same thrill you used to get when you would paint…

I flopped back onto my bed, thinking over all these things carefully.  I turned each new thought around and around in my head until it was as smooth and polished as glass.  I tried to make sense of each of them, but I couldn't.  Harry was someone, alright.  He was a very big someone that had entered my life out of the blue.  He very possibly might have the ability to change my life… or even save it.

But what of it?

Who was he, really?  What had happened to him that had toughened him and left him fragile at the same time?  Why had he entered my life, and why had I entered his?  None of it made any sense to me, unless I chalked it all up to some cosmic force pushing us together…

Now there's an idea, baby girl, my mom's voice said in my head.  The stars in all their infinite mystic wisdom are drawing you two together.  I laughed lightly as I heard her honey voice dripping sarcasm.  Closing my eyes, I envisioned her face floating to the surface of my mind.  There it was, clear and sharp in detail.  Her thick, curly dark brown hair.  Her wide, round blue eyes, clear and crystalline with innocence.  That sweet smile, pug nose, and that dash of freckles sprinkled over her nose that made her look ten years younger.

"Mama…" I said softly, rolling over onto my stomach and pushing my chin up onto my propped fists.  My back half hung off the bed widthwise, but I didn't mind.  I squinted at the brown, knotted oak wall across from me, inches from my nose.  "Where are you?" I whispered again, softer than before.  "I love you.  I miss you.  Come back."

I smoothed my palms face down and crossed my arms, leaning my head to the left on them.  No matter how many times I thought about my mother and the terrible way she'd disappeared, it didn't make any sense.  I still saw her cute, sporty face, makeup-less, the way it looked minutes before he took her.  I still thought about all the Chinese takeout dinners we had shared in the kitchen, me sitting cross-legged on the counter, her leaning against the stove, laughing about something.  I still felt all the same, confusing emotions I had when I found the note and saw his back disappearing through the window…

I shook my head, clearing it of these sobering thoughts.  They would only get me more disheartened and sad, bring on more despair and grief.  I couldn't let grief destroy me as it had almost destroyed Mama when Father left when I was a child.  I couldn't let the grief take me over… I had to be strong for Mama, to get her back somehow.

I sat up.  Harry.  Harry could help me.  Whatever he had experienced, he knew how I felt.  He knew what it was like to lose someone you loved, I was sure of it.  As I stood up quickly, I began to pace again.  Whatever I had to do, wherever I had to go, I was going to save my Mom, with Harry's help.  And save him.  Save him from whatever had been in that letter, whatever weight filled his heart with loneliness… I would save him, and he would save me.

I was filled with a new resolve now.  It didn't matter how long it took to get him out of his shell, or how frustrating the fight was.  I would do it.  I had to.  For my Mama, for Harry, for me… for all of us.

Whatever dark nemeses we were fighting, whether they were connected or not, we would conquer them.  With each other.

As I paced, new plans and ideas formulated in my head.  The hope was overpowering, like a surge of cool, cleansing rain.  The hope I had always needed was here, to finally wash away our sorrow.