Peace in the Rain
AN: Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and apologize for, one how long it's been, and two, how emotional this is. I wasn't ready to sit down and write this before I went to bed, but I did. I'll keep this short. Hope you enjoy and I'll see you at the bottom! ONWARDS!
We'd met as kids. A meeting that stuck out in my mind as much she did. It was hard to pull all the kids away from the playground at the end of recess, much less twenty minutes early. There was a rainstorm coming, though, and all that metal didn't exactly make for a safe environment. We were being herded like cattle back inside, but I'd forgotten my jacket, so I ran back to the paint-chipped monkey bars it was draped over. The rain was just starting, so I put in on. On my way back to the building, I noticed her. It was hard not to. She was my neighbor, one I remembered because we got off at the same bus stop, but I'd never seen her outside playing with any of the other neighborhood kids. She was wearing shorts and flip flops, laying down in the middle of the playground, head propped up on her balled up jacket. I ran over, thinking maybe she was hurt. She looked at me as I approached her.
"Are you okay?" I asked, slightly out of breath.
She nodded, looking back to the sky.
My nine year old self was baffled and was struggling to think of a reason she would still be outside. "What are you doing? We gotta go back inside." I said, looking back to the last few kids being ushered through the doors.
She shrugged, as best she could while laying down. "I like the rain. I don't know why."
I just looked at her, not knowing what to do. Walking away seemed like a weird thing to do. Besides, the teachers had closed the doors, thinking everyone was inside. The doors locked when they closed, so I knew I wouldn't be able to get back in without standing there for a few minutes, waiting for someone to walk by. So I took my jacket off, balled it up and put it on the ground, about a foot away from her head, and I took my place beside her.
I could feel her look over at me, surely wondering why I was invading her area. I just closed my eyes.
I hated it. I was tiny, wet, and cold. Thankfully, the teachers noticed we were gone fairly quickly, and came to bring us back inside. She seemed disappointed. I couldn't understand why. What kind of crazy did this girl have that made her wanna hang outside in the rain?
I didn't realize this would be a recurring theme in our lives.
Years later, I was starting to work on an essay, due tomorrow, of course, when I noticed her on her roof. Laying down in the rain. I stared out of my bedroom window for a moment, yet again wondering what the hell her particular brand of crazy was. After a moment, I opened my window.
"Hey."
She looked over at me, no different than she had at eight years old. Well. "Seven and a half, thank you very much."
"You okay?" I asked, knowing the answer.
Through the years, being nosy had made me realize this strange, mostly silent girl had a life that was anything but easy. Her family was always going through hard times with money. She had about four outfits that she'd rearrange to make it look like more than it was and in four years I only needed the two hands I had to count how many times I'd seen her eat lunch at school.
Her parents fought a lot, probably due to the fact that her mom liked boxed wine and anything that made her forget she was stuck with a family she didn't really want and a father who worked about seventy hours a week and didn't have anything to take his stress and aggression out on besides the people that lived in his house.
She nodded, giving me a small smile. "I like the rain. I don't know why."
I returned the smile, remembering our first official meeting on the playground. "Don't enjoy it too long, you'll get sick."
She nodded, turning her face back towards the sky. I knew she'd be out there for a while. This seemed to be her place to run away, and the times I'd seen her hang out up there, she was there for hours.
I took a moment, just looking at her. Her face calm despite the water and wind all around her. There was some weird urge inside my newly teenage brain to tell her she looked pretty. I shoved that down quickly, not daring to embarrass myself, and shut my window. I went back to my essay, occasionally looking up to see if she had gone in. I was in bed before she decided to go back inside.
I opened the door to my room and slammed the door shut, throwing my backpack on my bed. I sat at my desk roughly, slinging everything that was on the desk to the floor to release the anger I had. I was seventeen, and had gotten my license last week, only to have my parents take my keys away because I had been at a party that got busted. I had just fought, unsuccessfully, for an hour to get them back before I finally gave up and went upstairs. They were being ridiculous. I mean, it's not like I was drinking or anything. Other people were, but I was just hanging out with my friends. It's not like they didn't do the exact same thing a million years ago when they were young.
One of my friends had concert tickets for tonight and said he'd give one to me if I drove them. I'd been so excited, hoping and praying my parents would give me the keys back for one night, only to be slammed back down to Earth. I couldn't believe they wouldn't bend just a little this once. I hated them in that moment, and I'd told them that before I escaped to fume in solitude.
I looked up and saw, guess who. She looked a little different today, though from all the space in between us I couldn't quite figure out why. I thought about saying something, but I didn't, too angry to be bothered at the moment.
A couple hours later I'd finished my homework and calmed down. I looked to see if she was still there. Sure enough, there she was. The urge came again, to say something. I didn't know what, though. So I just decided to stick with what had worked in the past.
I pushed up my window, bending down to shove half of my body out of it. "Hey."
She didn't respond. So I yelled a little louder. Maybe she didn't hear me. "Hey."
Her head moved slowly to look over at me.
"You okay?" I asked, expecting the same answer I got every time.
She didn't say anything, just turned her head back to face away from me.
My eyebrows furrowed. I'd asked that question I don't know how many times. I'd never gotten that response.
My parents had left about twenty minutes ago. They went to dinner, knocking and asking if I wanted to go before they left. I'd said no, not wanting to be around them. I knew my keys were in my mom's purse, so they was no way I was sneaking away.
I stood there for a minute, confused, like all those years ago, on what to do next. I finally decided to go talk to her. Maybe she was having a particularly rough day at home.
I got onto her roof with a ladder her father always had leaning against the shed, apparently too lazy to walk a few extra steps and put it inside after he used it. The rain started half way up the ladder. Of course. I, very carefully, made my way over to her, cautious not to slip off.
I stood over her, not really knowing what to do now that I was here. This all of a sudden seemed like a really bad idea. What if she got pissed that I was in her space? What if her dad came home and found me up here?
She didn't acknowledge me. I took a deep breath and took my spot beside her, sitting, not laying, but still feeling myself being blasted into the past. I looked at her and noticed the bruises she hid very well. I'd only really seen her in school, where she was all covered up, but at home I'd only seen her wear tank tops or ratty old shirts. Never up close though. I sat there, not knowing what to say, staring at a bruise that was very new on her face. New enough that it wasn't even fully dark yet.
She finally looked over at me, somewhat surprised to see me. She looked like she had fallen asleep and just woke up. Hell, maybe she had. "What are you doing here?"
I shrugged. "You didn't answer me. I wanted to make sure you were okay." I answered honestly, hoping she wouldn't laugh at me for it.
She laid there, her face full of an emotion I couldn't quite describe. Her eyes started welling up with tears, looking everywhere but at me. She nodded. "I'm fine."
I just sat there, knowing she was lying but not knowing what to do about it.
She looked tired, in many ways. Up close, I could see how her life, that more often than not I didn't even think about, weighed on her. Her eyes kept batting, too, like she would fall asleep any minute.
"You look tired. Why don't you go inside and go to sleep." I suggested, hoping she'd take my advice for once.
She shook her head, eyes closing. "No. I like the rain."
"You don't know why." I finished for her, smiling slightly.
She smiled, too. "It's peaceful." She opened her eyes as best she could with how tired she clearly was, her smile slightly bigger this time. More genuine. She'd finally solved her puzzle.
I nodded, smiling back.
She stopped smiling, looking at me like she wanted to say something but didn't know how to say it. Eventually, she figured it out. "Would you stay with me? Just for a little while."
I didn't know how to tell her I didn't really want to. I hated the rain, and I didn't want to hang out on her roof to get colder and more wet than I already was. She looked so hopeful, almost begging me without saying anything. So I just nodded, getting situated to lay down beside her.
After a few minutes, she reached over and grabbed my hand, interlacing her fingers with mine. I didn't know what to do with that. Was it a thank you? Did she like me? Was she trying to get comfort from me? The only human that seemed to be concerned with how she felt. I turned my head towards her to see if her face would tell me anything, but it was pointed at the sky, eyes closed. After a minute I copied her. I'll be damned if I didn't doze off, too.
I woke up not too long later. It was still raining slightly. I pulled out my phone to check the time. I'd been asleep thirty minutes at the most. I looked over at her, curious to see if she was still sleeping.
She was. Her mouth was slightly parted, her face looked the most peaceful I'd ever seen it.
My body shivered hard, obviously not used to being in the cold rain this long. I cursed quietly, deciding I needed to wake her up. If she wanted me to stay with her I could, but not out here.
I sat up a little, reached my free hand over and shook her shoulder slightly, trying to be gentle and avoid the bruises. She wasn't responding to gentle, so I shook a little harder. Still no response.
I fought to free my hand from hers, using it to sit up fully and then shook her again. "Come on, we gotta get up." I looked over my shoulder at the clouds. "This weather's about to get bad. We gotta move."
I looked at her closely. Her skin was awfully pale. I started panicking. I grabbed the hand I'd been holding before, trying to find a pulse, cursing because I didn't really know where to look for one there. I put it down and went for her neck, I knew where that one was.
No pulse.
My heart started pounding. I pulled my phone out again, fingers struggling to hold the phone and dial 911. I stuttered my way through the phone call, struggling to get basic shit outta my mouth. The woman on the phone was staying on the phone until the ambulance got there, which I kind of appreciated. I didn't wanna know how I'd do in the silence.
I was listening to her ramble about some random bullshit I wasn't really paying attention to, when I noticed her other hand. It was clenched with something in it. I just sat there looking at it, not sure if I wanted to know what it was. Eventually, I reached over and grabbed it from her. It was a bottle of sleeping pills with, I was guessing, her mom's name on them. The prescription had just been filled a few days ago.
I interrupted the lady's babbling to tell her what I'd found. I could hear the sirens, the ambulance wasn't that far away.
They let me ride in with her, considering her family wasn't home to go with her. I texted my parents from the front seat of the ambulance, letting them know what was going on and where I was.
The waiting was horrible. They didn't seem optimistic that they'd be able to help her and I felt like absolute shit. Hindsight is always 20/20. And it was making me feel like a complete asshole right about now. She was on the roof for an hour, that I knew of, before I even decided to say anything. I decided to ignore her. Even when I went to her, I laid there and took a fucking nap while she laid next to me dying. I didn't do anything.
I wasn't sure how much time had passed when my parents got there. All I had told them in the text was that the girl next door had to go to the hospital and I rode in the ambulance with her. When I saw them I couldn't help but cry. My mom came and hugged me, asking what had happened. I told her as best I could, rambling through the snot and staggered breathing. She just held me tighter, crying with me.
She didn't make it. They'd been too late. I'd been too late. I couldn't believe I'd spent all that time doing nothing. All I wanted was to turn back the clock. I'd do things so differently.
The cops came to her house a couple days later and arrested her father. I figured it was because of the bruises. I couldn't help but smile as they dragged him off, him fighting every inch of the way.
It turns out it wasn't because of the bruises. The autopsy revealed that she'd been sexually abused, too. Recently enough to find out it was by her father. I wanted to throw up. I'd lived next door to this girl my whole life. I knew she had it rough, but I couldn't have imagined all of this.
Her funeral was maybe the saddest thing I'd ever seen. She had an aunt that lived a couple states over that came, a couple kids and teachers from school, and my family. That was it. I looked around, knowing they were only there out of respect. They didn't know her. Hell, I didn't even really know her, but I knew more than they did. It made me angry.
After the service was over, I waited until they were done filling up her grave. My parents waited for me at the car. The men finally left, and I was alone with her. Again. And it started raining. I looked up, and after a moment, started laughing and crying. I'm sure I looked fucking crazy, but I didn't know what else to do. I sat down for a moment, pulling myself together.
Some time later my mom came to get me, gently resting her hand on my shoulder. I didn't say a word, just stood up. I hugged her, feeling suddenly grateful for my parents. "I don't hate you." I whispered into her hair.
Her grip on me tightened. "We know."
She walked ahead of me back to the car. I paused for a moment and said quietly, "I hope you found peace in the rain."
I got back home and changed into my pajamas, not wanting to do anything but go to sleep. As I put my dirty clothes in the hamper, my eyes drifted towards her roof, feelings I couldn't even begin to know how to explain came rushing to the surface. I climbed on my roof, laying back and closing my eyes, letting the rain soak through my clothes.
Some time later, I heard my dad's voice. "Hey. Are you okay?"
I nodded. "Yeah. Just wanted to hang out up here for a bit."
He looked at me, confused. "It's raining. You're gonna get sick."
I shook my head. "I won't be up here long."
I closed my eyes, smiling. "I like the rain."
AN: Holy shit, guys. I have no idea where this idea came from, but it's here and I'm crying. Well, I know where it came from, actually. I wanted to write something and I was looking through Pinterest to find something that caught my attention. For some reason it was an image that just said "She found peace in the rain." I looked for it again to link it and of course now I can't find it. So that's dope. I didn't really picture any specific people while writing this, but this pairing kinda works. I put it here because I figured more people would see it here. And my other stories mostly have something to do with Twilight characters, so why not. Like I said up top, I'm sorry it's been so long and I'm also sorry I had to come back with something so frickin emotional. Geesh. I hope you guys liked it. Pleeeeeease leave a review! Any good thing, bad thing, you're a terrible writer, this is way too sad, anything! I wanna know what you think. Open up your minds and your souls to me. That sounded weird. Anyway! You're all ridiculously beautiful, don't you ever change a fucking thing! Love you guys! Mwah!