Warning/ disclaimer: see last chapter
dedicated to Allie for obvious reasons
Hate This Place
Max
I love the rain. The rhythm of the drops as they hit the ground, the way it can drown out everything. It's dark; bringing sable clouds to rest over the previously perfect sky, turning the whole world grey, occasionally joined by a loud crash of thunder. If you get caught out in the rain, you get soaked, your hair clinging to your face, water seeping through your clothes irritating the skin beneath. It dulls your vision, brings on illnesses and it's the perfect accompaniment of teenage angst and yet -it's beautiful; fresh water falling from the heavens cleansing the mortal ground below. It's cold but when the sun's been burning your back all day, it can be the most glorious thing you have ever felt and if you've ever danced in the rain, then you know the pure child-like joy of spinning around, letting the cool drops land on your face. That feeling is worth having to spend the next day in bed with a cold. And when you're out the rain after a long day it doesn't matter that you're clothes are drenched or that your hands are frozen or that you're hair is going to frizz when it dries – not if you have the laughter of the one you love shielding you from the sadness rain can bring. That feeling is beautiful.
Of course, the effect is somewhat ruined when the one you love doesn't love you back and is in fact your annoyingly dense best friend. You know, for ages I didn't really believe in love. Not the kind you saw on TV or read about in books, where everything turns into a happy ending with the one you're destined for. I believed you could care deeply about someone but that's as far as it went. You're not supposed to be with one person forever, there's no one you're 'meant to be' with, just someone you care about. The whole idea of love never seemed completely real for me. Not everything's a happy ending. But then that all changed. What happened? Well, I proved myself wrong. I fell in love.
It's more then just a feeling, I get that now. Love is something completely indescribable and yet the only thing that can be used to describe the way I feel. I wasn't expecting to feel this way. It came on way too sudden; I didn't even notice it happening. I suppose I just fell in love with him over time, but I never expected it to just hit me like that from out of the blue. You're probably wondering now what any of this has got to do with rain. Well, it's just that the first time I realised I had feelings for my best friend was in the rain.
We were out shopping or something. We were in the town centre –just me and him when it had started raining, and I mean literally pouring it down. Now as I've already mentioned, I love the rain however, Tyson, my best friend, does not. He started grumbling about wanting to go home but I ignored him. I stood there, right in the middle of town and let the lusciously bitterly icy droplets run down my skin.
"Max! What the fuck are you doing?" I remember he'd shouted at me and I'd Laughed in return. "Come on, Maxie, I hate the rain!"
"How can you hate the rain, Tyson?" I'd asked him. "It's beautiful. It cleans away the dirt and refreshes the air. How can you hate that? Haven't you ever just gone out and danced in the rain?" The look on his face at that moment was priceless; he must have thought I was mental.
"No, I'm sane." Was his reply. I'd just laughed again and I began dancing in the now near-empty road. "Er…Max…" I hadn't let him finish. I'd grabbed his hand and forced him to dance with me and he'd laughed. My heart literally missed a beat and despite the fact that a harsh wind was now ripping painfully across my dampened face –the warmth that spread from the pit of my stomach through the whole of my insides boiling my blood and causing my cheeks to flush was just…. unbelievable. I could barely breathe, the feeling was so great. And since then, my feelings for him escalated right to the point where the pain of not being with him was burning a hole right through me.
And now it's raining again. We're sitting on the front steps of Tyson's grandpa's dojo, the doorway as our shelter. We'd run out giggling after Rei and Kai had rather publicly revealed their feelings for each other and decided that we should take a break from the party.
"Johnny Depp or Orlando Bloom?" he asked me tipsily. He'd had quite a lot to drink; he wasn't drunk enough to pass out or anything but he was still drunk enough to slur his words when he spoke to me.
"Johnny Depp obviously. Um…Enrique or Rei?" we'd been playing this game for quite a while now. It was something we always played when we were bored.
"Rei." He replied. "Um…Gary or….." He looked around struggling to think of someone else in his inebriated state of mind. "Gary or…Chad?" I snorted.
"Who's Chad?" He gave a lazy half-shrug before laying his head on my shoulder. "Chad?" I hazarded a guess.
"Excellent choice!" He declared loudly accentuating his point by pointing a finger into the air. "Your turn." He muttered into my neck causing a ripple of pleasure through my body.
"Ok…me or Kai?"
"You of course." He mumbled raising his head. I nodded and waited for him to ask me one. "Maxie, I don't want to play anymore."
"Oh." I replied "well, what do you want to…" I was cut off by a pair of lips pressed against my own.
It was a chaste kiss; just Tyson moving his lips gently against mine –light touches, neither of us choosing to deepen it. It was sweet and pure like a first kiss should be, exactly how I had wanted it to be. He drew away slightly, a serious expression planted on his face.
"Maxie…" He whispered almost apprehensively. "I…I think I love you." I smiled but chose to ignore the sensation growing in my chest.
"Ty, do something for me." I told him.
"Of course, I'd do anything for you." He slurred drunkenly.
"Tell me again tomorrow when you're sober, ok?" He sighed and moved his head to my lap and laid there.
"Alright. If you want me to. But it won't make much of a difference." I just carried on smiling, only half-believing his words. We stayed like that for ages, just watching the rain fall to the ground shrouded by the blackness of the night.
"Max," Tyson's disgusted voice interrupted our silent reveries. "Did I just see my grandfather slap Mr. D's arse?" I frowned at this sentence and was just about to ask him how much he'd had to drink, when I caught sight of two figures on the street outside the dojo. And the situation they were in made it all too easy to believe Tyson's words.
"Come on, Ty; let's go back to the party. I don't really want to see that."
"Yeah." Tyson agreed still sounding disgusted. We stood up and I smiled once more, when I felt an arm snake around my waist.
"Love you, Ty." I whispered to him as we started walking. In reply, he kissed me lightly on the cheek and dragged me into the loud roar of rock music and drunken shouts that was the party.
ermm, yeah..next chapter Bryan/Tala.
