Weathering

Have you ever stopped and listened to the rain? I asked, looking over at you. Your blonde hair was tousled, your body covered by a striped blanket and a superman t-shirt. Long and lean and reminding me of a cirrus cloud that lay across the sky. 

Of course I have, you replied in that sleepy voice of yours. The blue in your eyes was darkened by exhaustion. Who hasn’t? 

I shrugged slightly. You’d be surprised, is all I said in reply. But what I meant was, You’d be surprised how much people miss because they aren’t paying attention. I unconsciously tug at my long sleeves as I think this, wrapping my hands up in the ends so my fingers won’t tremble. So you don’t see them quiver and think the wrong thing.

The rain continues to pound on the roof of your beat up Camry. I can hear the howl of the wind and the rattle of the wet leaves as they slap each other in a fight they didn’t volunteer for. The dark cloudy sky almost makes me believe that it is eight o’clock at night, but I can see the neon green numbers on the dash that say 3:16. 

Lay down and take a nap with me, you murmur, nuzzling against my neck. You wrap your arms around my waist and pull me down to the nest of ratty blankets and pillows that we made on the back seat. Was that really only a few hours ago? It felt like a lifetime. I took a deep breath, inhaling your scent of Old Spice cologne that you stole from your dad and seventeen year-old boy sweat and the rain that we got caught in. It’s not a bad smell, it’s uniquely you, and I love it for that reason. 

I try to quiet my racing mind and let you hold me. Don’t twitch, don’t wiggle, no sudden movements, my conscious whispers to me softly. Self preservation ever at the forefront of my thoughts. I focus on the raindrops that hit the roof, their own little orchestra of chaos that is strangely comforting. More so than you holding me. 

The sound takes me back to when I was ten, lying in my parents bed waiting for them to come home, even though I wasn’t supposed to be awake. The babysitter didn’t care, she talked to her boyfriend on the phone and ate four popsicles from our freezer. The comforter on my parents bed was cozy, enveloping me in the smell of clean laundry and my moms lotion. Our roof was plain shingles, nothing fancy, not a good amplifier for the stormy symphony that was playing overhead. But I could still hear it. It’s a significant memory, but I don’t know why.  

It sounded like barely tamed rage. Like the colors red and gray blue and the tone behind raised voices that come from behind closed doors. It sounded like the roar of a crowd at a game that was just lost, the cry of a grieving mother, my quiet sobs into an abused pillow that knew more than anyone else ever could. It was my frustration when I was sick and had to lie in bed all day, it was the color of an ugly bruise that couldn’t quite decide how it wanted to appear. 

More memories arose, but I knew that they weren’t good. I could almost see the thin veils that covered the feelings, the smells, the textures, that would send me whirling back. And you didn’t deserve to see that. So I squash it down and concentrate instead on the hard planes of your chest through your soft t-shirt, the way that your left thumb traced smooth circles on the small of my back, how my head seemed to fit perfectly in the crook of your shoulder. These were tangible things, present things, things that could take up space in my head instead of the words that wanted to bubble to the surface. 

Are you okay? You whisper softly into my hair. 

I nod. Yeah I’m fine, I’m with you, remember? The lies leave a bad taste in my mouth that I know you won’t be able to discern when you kiss me again. 

Okay, love, You murmur softly, kissing the top of my head, then my forehead. Your lips are soft, smooth, they make me wonder if you’ve ever been dehydrated in your life. If you ever faced the cold, bitter wind for too long and came home with them chapped and cracked, your cheeks rosy and your eyes bright with exhilaration. 

I love weather. All kinds of it. My brother calls me Sam Sparks and my parents tell me that meteorology is a bore and I’ll be broke all my life. But I love weather. When it rains while the sun shines, when it first starts to snow, when the roads are coated in ice. At night in the winter, I'll go and sit on the roof just to feel the November air crisp on my face. It was a kind of high that drugs could never bring me close to. Why do weed? I felt a similar detachment and lazy happiness when the sun broke through the clouds and shone down on me. 

Whenever I thought about you, your being was a plethora of weather. Your anger was like a tornado, whirling and strong but brief, never lasting very long and hardly ever directed at me. Your golden retriever energy was like a pile of cumulus clouds, undaunted and happy. Your eyes were the color of the sky after a storm, a bright blue that feels out of place. When you smiled it reminded me of the way that snowflakes swirled in the breeze or how sunbeams looked when they were outlined against the clouds. Your happiness was like a rainbow in opposition to a gray sky, a promise of good things to come. 

What's your favorite cloud? I ask you, playing lightly with your curls. 

I don’t know, you reply, voice muffled by my neck. I’ve never really thought about it. Maybe the big bumpy ones? I dunno.

You mean cumulonimbus? I ask.

Yeah, sure, cumulonimbus. You whispered, and I could tell from your tone that you were slowly falling asleep. 

Our bodies fit, and our souls intertwined in a way that was deep and irreplaceable. But you never understand me, not fully. Which I suppose is okay, I barely tracked when you talked about Keats or Edgar Allen Poe. It still kind of hurt though when you hardly acted like you cared, I guess I was the same way sometimes. We had known each other for years after all. You get to a point when you know someone, when their quirks are cute and you tune out their rants. Granted, that was before we became more than best friends. Before that kiss at your brother's bonfire, the one that tasted like s'mores and the bourbon that we stole out of the liquor cabinet that neither of us liked. Before we danced in the rain in front of the whole school, before you kissed me again in the dark and told me that you loved me.  

You know what you remind me of? You said this after a few minutes of silence and I almost jumped, I had entered a place between asleep and awake and you jogged me out of it. 

What do I remind you of? I ask, my voice is tired and it sounds older than my years. 

You know when the sun is shining in the middle of the afternoon, and it starts raining? That golden rain. You remind me of that. Golden and rare, beautiful, but somehow, you yawned and your arms wrapped tighter around me, somehow still melancholy. 

I stayed silent, not quite sure what to say to that. 

You don’t have to say anything, you said softly. I just wanted you to know. 

I nodded, my throat strangely choked up and I could feel tears rising to my eyes. Why was I reacting like this? You looked up at me, you could tell something from my quiet and a sad smile rose to your face. My tears fell and you kissed them away, whispered reassurances. I don’t know what broke within me, but something did. You seemed to understand, didn’t question anything or ask me what was wrong. You held me in your arms as I fell apart and rebuilt me kiss by kiss, word by word, with every raindrop that hit the roof. 

We lay there, listening to the rain. The little drops of water marched across the roof of an old Camry that held two teenagers, dripping down the sides and racing across the rolled-up windows. You wrap me in your arms, and I trace the patterns your freckles made across your cheeks. You quote poetry to me and I ask you about the weather. Neither of us quite knowing what was going on, why we were there or what great Thing in the cosmos brought us together or how we started. Maybe it was the storm. Maybe it was when I asked you,

Have you ever stopped and listened to the rain?

Like, stopped to smell the roses you mean? You ask me with a glint in your eyes.

I shrugged and smiled at you. Sure, like stopping to smell the roses. 

I hope that you stop sometime, to listen to the rain.