After this short announcement, enjoy my latest story. It's true, my blog died a quick painless death. But I think I have found a way to do what I intended from the start in the post called My Life is a Map, or something like that. Regardless, while trying to maintain my composure as I "cooked" breakfast at five something in the afternoon (tried to warm ham and cheese on an english muffin in the toaster oven and burned attempt one) a story flashed into my mind from ?where. It's unedited but I need to feel productive after showering and dressing for no particular reason so late in the day when my dirty pj's that I don't sleep in, would have done just fine for another week...yup, my heads all messed up, so here you go!
The Rain
I love the rain! It’s why I ultimately chose this place for
us. I adore the sound of the drops or droves against the tin roof. By this time
next week Aidan will be living here full time. We have only his couch left to
move in and the small antique Victorian table that I teased him about so much. It
was affectionate teasing. It had been his grandmother’s and he swore to me in a
declaration of love the first night we made love, that until me, she had been
the love of his life. I smiled thinking of that night. I always would.
But before I got lost in my thoughts of that night, again, I
stretched and thought about my day. Aida was probably getting up just about now
also, thinking him self lucky to be away from me. He knows if he were here, I
would be tickling him, telling him we had time to go out and play in the rain
before work. And if that didn’t work, I would entice him to shower with me so I
could pretend and we could kill two birds with one stone.
But he had spent his final night in his apartment. I’d had girl’s
night on this side of town last night, a year’s long tradition with three
college roommates, and he had an interview around the corner from his soon to
be old rental, this morning.
“I know!” When he’s not here I talk out loud to myself an
awful lot, I thought. “I’ll take him coffee and walk him to the interview. He
is always prompt. I can at least sneak in a good morning kiss if I time it
right. And he will love the surprise. He knows I am working at home today, so
he will never expect it.”
I hopped in the shower and really wished he were here to
soap up with, but that would surely make him late for the interview. I just
could not get enough of him lately. I found it hard to keep my hands off him,
anywhere we went. Given my choice, I would have stayed in bed with him for a
week, for his amazing radiating heat, his warm and loving caresses and the sex…
“Oh, don’t think about the sex Rainey, you’ll make yourself late!”
I speed dressed, put on make-up and realized it was one of
those uncannily lucky good- hair days. He would be so happy to see me. And a
kiss would sustain me. After the interview he would go to work. He wasn’t even
considering changing jobs, he just felt it was good job security for your boss
to know you always had a fall back plan.
I grabbed the one train uptown, grabbed two coffees at his
favorite corner Café and stepped out the door just in time to see him walking
far down the next block, right towards me. He was wearing a coat with a hood.
My hair was curly and looked great wet. He would tell me I was going to catch
cold.
Wow, he was really head-down, lost in his thoughts, but I
could swear I could see the blond highlights in his light brown hair. And I
knew his blue-green eyes, with those impossibly long lashes, better than my own.
I loved the high cheeked structure of his soft face. And suddenly I couldn’t
wait to kiss him.
I turned to look at the light realizing he would cross to
right where I was standing so I just stepped towards the walk sign and watched.
He looked over at the little boy crossing a few yards ahead of him, pulling on
his Mom’s arm splashing in the puddles. And as they started to cross, the
little boys hand slipped from his Mom and he fell in the street.
The truck moving the same way through the intersection
overcompensated and braked so hard he moved out of his lane and swung into the
side street behind them to avoid hitting the little boy. Aidan and I locked
eyes, I know both thinking how close of a call that had just been. He smiled at
me and then the cab behind the truck decided if the truck could turn it must be
all clear. It wasn’t.
Aidan never knew what hit him. By the time I made the five
steps into the street to reach him he was gone. Nothing. No pulse, no “help me
Rainey, it hurts!” Nothing. Just a dead still body. His beautiful alive face
and body. My beautiful Aiden. But the doctor was telling me otherwise. He had
crossed right behind Aidan, and only missed being hit by inches. “Sweetheart,
he’s gone.” There was no pulse but I kept feeling for it, and made the doctor
do compressions while I tried to breathe life into the love of my life.
I was sitting in a puddle of coffee, street muck, and rain
pooling towards the gutter. The doctor kept telling me to let him help me to
the curb. EMS was on the way. “Why?” I didn’t
understand. Aidan had just smiled at me. I wanted my kiss good morning.
Suddenly I realized I was laying draped across Aidan, our coffee a puddle under
his head on one side, and my right hand, on his other side running through his
beautiful warm blood, mixing with the rain and the filth of the street, before
trickling down the storm drain.
I don’t like the rain anymore.
