I try but fail not to think about Luke and how it’s been four long days since I spilt my secret . . . four long days since I last saw him.
After breakfast, Mom kisses me goodbye and jets off to work. Old habits die hard, and I tiptoe towards the porch window, teeth mashed together tight, because everyone knows that makes your movements more cautious. I peel back the curtain and scan Luke’s driveway for his truck. It’s still there. He hasn’t left for school yet.
I exhale a breath that, by rights, should set off our earthquake alarm. ‘Effect and outcome,’ I remind myself, just like in Dr Reeves’s story about the girl who couldn’t catch a break with the football player but still got her happily-ever-after.
My happily-ever-after isn’t quite a husband, kids and a house in suburbia. I just want some rain. See, when you live in a place that only gets twenty inches of rain a year, it does become essential to savour every last soaking-wet second. Plus, I’m not skipping out on world-watching because I’m afraid of seeing Luke. This is the only outside I get to see.
Did I really just think those things?
Apparently so. And I must mean them because I’m already opening the front door. I slide down, sit on the floor, stretch my legs out in front of me, and wince at how pasty they are, like spilt milk. If I hadn’t been traumatized by FakeTanGoneWrong.com, I would totally invest.
Grey clouds, thicker than smoke from a bonfire, clot in the sky. I breathe in the fresh air. Our front yard is a Monet. Not quite as colourful as the back, but still vibrant and beautiful.
Across the road, the Trips line their lawn with tubs and bottles. They catch the rain, recycle the water. It’s why Mom won’t drink anything at their house that’s not boiled.
Malcolm Trip stands looking up at the sky, hands on hips, smiling like he just fell in love for the first time. He’s draped in an eye-bleedingly bright kaftan. Natural fibres, of course. It looks like a sack, makes me itch from all the way over here. He spots me and waves.
Mom says Malcolm reminds her of my dad, aka some man who knocked her up at twenty-one and took off before I was even born. I’ve never met him, but he wrote to me once. I didn’t read the letter. Well, you don’t look through a stranger’s photo albums if you don’t have to, right? You don’t know the people in those pictures. Same principle. I don’t know the man who put pen to paper either.
The rain falls slowly at first, huge drops plopping down on the ground, making the blistering concrete fizz. I love the way it smells. Hot. Like a coal fire the day after it’s gone out.
In seconds the rain falls so hard I can barely see two feet in front of me. I lean my head back against the door, close my eyes, and listen to the sound of Triangle Crescent being cleaned, the water a soothing balm for everything that’s been burnt. Some of the splashes that hit the porch spray my bare legs and I shudder.
The pictures I love looking at the most on my Hub feed are the ones with almost-kissing couples standing out in the rain. Now, it’s possible that’s because my OCD likes the sanitation implied by running water, but beyond that, the part of me that cries every time I read Pride and Prejudice thinks it’s wonderfully romantic.
I’m contemplating never moving from this spot when my phone cuckoos to notify me of social media updates.
Again, I’ve decided to stay away from The Hub until my mood lifts, or at least until I can figure out how to remove Luke from my mind without excessive intake of alcohol. It’s all the sloppy status updates. Apparently everyone fell in love this weekend and all they want to do is talk about it. The fawning and excitement over their new romantic endeavours just reminds me that Luke witnessed the full force of my crazy before he left last week. I want to fork my eyes out. In other news, Cupid is an asshole.
With next to no enthusiasm I lift my phone. I’m about to dismiss the notification when the name on my screen catches my attention.
Luke has requested my friendship.
My thumb can’t work fast enough. Pressing all the wrong buttons, I unlock my screen and open the page. His avatar makes me pause, push a hand against my heart to calm its erratic rhythm. The ACCEPT button is bright red. I push it and his page opens up automatically.