Eyes Like Rain

I would consider myself to be an avid enjoyer of romance books. Whether it be sweet, smooth rides to happily ever afters, or emotional angsty ones with bumpy roads, I used to compare them all to myself. Nathan and I were inseparable since we met, and it was only after I got out of a previous toxic relationship that I realised how I felt about him. He was my happy romance story, my everything. I had my whole life planned out: to finish school and go live with him and his parents. I’d find myself some work and help him get enough money for us to move into our own place. It was the perfect life for me, and I was so excited to spend it with the one person who makes me happy, the one who understands who I am and loves me despite everything I’d been through.

But now that was about to come crashing to the ground.

My parents were the cliché in those ‘good girl’ romance stories. Strict, controlling, and way too overprotective. And I, a scared girl too meek to even defend the love of my life, was too scared to stand up for myself.

Now because of it, I’m being forced to give up the only person I’ve ever known that loves me the same as I love him.

I’m so sorry, Nathan. I wish our love story had never gone wrong.

Present

“Hey, Nathan?” I knocked on the bedroom door and waited for an answer. I heard a shuffle inside, then his muffled voice.

“Come in, baby!”

I exhaled slowly, my face burning with shame. I opened the door and stepped inside, closing it gently behind me and leaning against the wood. I was glad it wasn’t cold against my back; not that it would match the ice setting in my bones anyway.

He was sitting in bed, reading a book with the bookmark discarded on the nightstand beside him. The lights were off, and he had on a nightlight to see the pages. As I entered, he slipped the bookmark between the pages and put the book down on the nightstand.

“So, you said you wanted to talk?” he asked, patting the bed beside him.

“Yeah, I did.” I moved forwards and slid under the covers beside him. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close, hugging me to his chest. Reluctantly, I put my hands against him and pushed him away gently. “Nathan, this is serious. Really serious. And I know it’s going to upset you, so I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.”

“Oh no,” Nathan’s voice shook as he moved to look directly at my face. “You’re not breaking up with me, are you?”

I bit my lip and stayed silent, staring down at the patterns on the pillowcases.

“Callie,” he breathed, “Please—”

“I’m sorry,” I heard my own voice sound shaky and tinny to my ears as the tears started to spill over my cheeks. “My parents— they’ve threatened to do this themselves. And I don’t want them to, so I’m going to do it now before they can get rid of you—”

“Get rid of me?” Nathan tipped up my chin with his fingers, so I was forced to look at him. His face was a picture of pain that I never wanted to see again, yet I was being forced to constantly look at him. “Callie, please tell me that you’re joking. Please.”

I moved my head away from his hand. “I’m sorry Nathan. I’m not joking. We have to break up.”

He recoiled from me as if I’d just cut him with a blade. It felt like that for me; I never imagined I’d have to be saying these words to him. Every single word coming from my mouth felt as if it were slicing my heart into tiny little pieces from which they’d never recover.

These words were not mine. They were my parents’.

“No, Callie. We’re not breaking up. We can fix this; we can make your parents see that we love each other. We love each other. Right? You can’t just stop love—”

“They think they can, Nathan. You don’t understand, they won’t let up on this—”

“Then we can make them, Callie. You’re giving up on me, on us? Just because they’re too stubborn to accept that you’re in love and you’ve made a choice for yourself?”

“No,” I shook my head, sniffling pathetically. “No, I’m not giving up on you, or us— I’m trying to protect us—”

“No Callie, you’re not protecting us right now. You’re destroying us. Everything we’ve been through, you’re about to destroy it all because your parents said so?”

“I don’t have a choice,” I whispered, my voice barely a breath. “If I don’t do this, they’ll do it for me and they’ll make sure you’re completely gone.”

He fell silent, and I risked a glance at him. There was a single tear streak running down his cheek. I could see the tear glistening just above his chin. My chest felt hollow. I’d never seen Nathan cry before.

“Please don’t go, Callie.” He whispered, looking over at me. His eyes were so raw with pain that I had to look back down. I couldn’t keep looking into those grey eyes of his, so clear and sad.

In the silence, I heard it beginning to rain heavily outside our bedroom window. I looked back at him, my own eyes glistening with unshed tears. As my vision blurred, his eyes seemed the only clear thing to me. Grey, just like the sky’s tears outside the window.

His eyes were clear as the rain outside. As clear as the tears in our eyes.

But they would always be clearer than the decision I had to make now.

“Nathan,” I inhaled, and exhaled slowly to prepare myself for what I was about to say. “You know I love you. I love you with everything I have, and everything I’ll ever have. I always will, which is why I’m doing this. I’m doing this for us, to protect our relationship. I know it doesn’t seem like it right now, but if you still love me in a year or two’s time, I hope you’ll understand why I’m doing this. I can’t bear the thought of losing you completely because it’ll destroy me. So, I have to do this now, before my parents force me to, or before they do this themselves, so that we don’t have to be separated completely.”

He was looking at me like I was the most beautiful but broken thing he’d ever seen. I swallowed hard and kept going before I could overthink this and change my mind in a moment of weakness.

“We have to break up now, Nathan. It’s our only option if we want to stay in each other’s lives. Otherwise, we’ll lose everything. At least if we break up now, we can stay friends, and hopefully be together in the future when we’re older and our parents won’t control us anymore—”

Up until this point, he’d been silent. But now as he spoke, his voice was too angry, too sudden, too loud. “No, Callie. This is bull crap. Your parents are the only ones being controlling here, not mine. For God’s sake, Callie, my parents adore you. They want me to keep you by my side forever, but yours? My side is apparently the last place they want you to be. Where do they want you, Callie? With them? Alone, focusing on a career you don’t want? Stuck with some rich prick who doesn’t care what you want as long as you bring in the big bucks? What then; you live your life miserably because they told you to? No Callie, you’re old enough now to make your own choices. Just because they’re being awful to you, that doesn’t mean you have to give this up.”

I stayed silent because I knew he was right. And I couldn’t defend the truth with lies because we’d always promised to never lie to each other.

“Please, Callie. Let me talk to them, or something. I can’t lose you like this; I can’t lose you at all because I love you—”

I just sobbed. I collapsed into his arms, all my fight draining from me, and sobbed in his arms. And all he did was hold me, stroking my hair silently and rubbing my back. He never said a word. Never told me it was okay, never told me he was angry or upset with me.

He told me nothing.

But I knew in that next moment that I’d shattered him when he spoke next, his voice so quiet I had to hold my breath to stop my heaving breaths to hear him.

“If this is what you want, we’ll do it.”

I felt him kiss my hair softly. “Stop crying, Callie. We’ll do this if you want to.”

“But I don’t want to,” I sobbed, wiping at my nose with my hands.

He held me closer, shushing me as he pulled me into his chest and wrapped the blankets around us. “I know, baby. I’m sorry I made this so difficult.”

“Don’t apologise,” I mumbled angrily. “Not your fault.”

He kissed my head again. “One last dance, my love?” he whispered into my hair.

I looked up at the window. “But it’s pouring outside, and we’re in our pyjamas.”

I meekly glanced at him. He was smiling such a sad smile; it broke my heart to see him this upset. It broke me even more to know he was this sad because of me.

“It’s okay baby, we’ve danced in the rain before, haven’t we?” his words brought back a flash of memories.

Kissing against his front door in a rainstorm. Walking home just as it started pouring with rain, twirling around puddles to avoid soaking our shoes more than they already were.

“Yes,” I whispered, my heart seeming to shrink in my chest.

“Come on,” he grabbed my hands and gently pulled me up, out of bed. He slipped on his dressing gown and handed me mine, and I slipped on the fluffy material and tied the sash into a messy bow over my stomach. Once he’d tied his too, he grabbed my hands again and pulled me over to our balcony, unlocking and opening the sliding glass door.

The rain was cold as we stepped out onto the stone. Trickling through my hair, running down the back of my neck under my dressing gown. We were both soaking in almost an instant.

“Shall we?” he asked, smiling at me. He looked happy, but I could see how sad he was by his eyes. They were usually so clear, but in contrast to only moments ago, they just seemed dull and devoid of life now.

I wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned into his chest, putting my hands under the material of his dressing gown; his shoulders were already slick with rainwater.

We started moving slowly, gazing at each other’s faces one last time. I could see tears running down his cheeks, even through the rain. I could feel myself crying, too. His eyes were so grey, so dark with sadness yet so much brighter than the clouds’ pity raining down on us.

He hugged me close to him and rested his chin on my head as we danced slowly on the balcony, our bodies swaying together to the rhythm of the raindrops pattering around us.

My eyes burned as I whispered for the last time, “I love you, Nathan.”

“I love you too, Callie.”