The prettiest I had ever seen her is when she was standing in the rain. There was no rhyme or reason for why she was out there, and I'm not even sure if she knew that it was raining. She always felt like the outdoors was the only place she really felt alive. As a child, she would climb trees five times her size, but was always too afraid to climb down. I guess this was foreshadowing her relationships in later years.

I didn't know what to say to her that night, and I still don't know what to say about it. She had raccoon eyes that were dead-set on me. She knew just how to make me freeze up, like I didn't have a thought in my head or a tongue in my mouth.

"...you okay?"

That's all I could muster up. I got nothing. She could tell. She preyed on this sort of thing. She knew that she was able to leave me speechless, and she knew how to milk that for everything it was worth (which was more than I knew at the time). I was a better listener, anyway.

So, there she was, in her front yard; her eyes looking at me, then glancing at the stars, then back to me, then to the ground. This pattern kept repeating for what felt like hours, but was barely even minutes. Time has a funny way of stopping when you're young and du(in love)mb. I had to do something so the hands on the clock would start spinning again.

I reached out for her soaking wet hand, but she pulled away. She was just like her mother, no matter how hard she tried not to be. From one person to the next, thinking the burning bridges in her rearview mirror wouldn't make that big of a mess. But, the difference between them is that her mom never returned to the scene of the crime.

We did this every couple of months. She would come back, and then she would leave just as fast. I'm not sure if it was the summer air that kept me hanging on, or if it was just so I could have a story to tell anyone who would dare listen. I could talk about it all for hours, but I couldn't talk to her for a second. That's the shy, awkward teenager in me.

But it all goes back to that rainy night. If rain is typically symbolic for a rebirth of sorts, when do I get to feel new again?






xxx.