Rainy Days

by A. S. Kelly

  I see myself again at the top of the stairs wearing my pink monkey pajamas.

  I see myself again trying to study for finals, sitting on the lawn in the garden while he strums his guitar.

  I see myself again crying in his arms the day my mother died.

  I see myself again at my my father’s funeral, kneeling next to the tombstone while he invites me to get up and and have courage.

  I hear his words that reassure me, that tell me I’ll never be alone, because I’m part of the family, his family.

  I hear his voice congratulating me for my degree, telling me he’s proud of me for what I have become.

  I feel his arms lifting me off the living room floor and setting me down gently on my bed. I feel him take off my glasses and close my book, setting it on the nightstand.

  I feel his lips brush my forehead and his voice wishing me sweet dreams.

  I hear his laughter, together with someone else laughing at me and making fun of me after the children used permanent marker on my face.

  I feel his desperation in the moment he asks me not to do it.

  I feel his tears on my face, mixed with the rain, while he asks me to stay, to not die.

  I feel his pain as he asks me not to leave, that he implores me to live, to not abandon him.

  I feel his love running through me, in my veins and on my skin.

  I feel his love surround me and quench my thirst, day after day, for years, my whole life, forever.

  I feel his love, I feel it distinctly. I feel his life running alongside mine and I feel that I have always loved him.

  Liam is part of me, not from today, not for a month and not since our first meeting.

  Liam has been part of my life, and even if I don’t know exactly for how long, I feel it, his constant presence, impressed on my heart, even if my mind isn’t able to connect all of the events, actions, situations.

  My heart knows.

  My heart has not forgotten him.

  “Hey, Rain, is everything okay?” Erin asks me, looking a bit worried.

  I blink a few times and feel the migraine erupting in my temples.

  “It’s—it’s just a migraine.”

  “Are you sure? You’re white, I’m worried. Should I call Aaron? Or Liam?”

  “No!” I stop her short. “Don’t tell anyone.”

  “Whatever you say, but I’m not comfortable with this.”

  “Everything’s fine. I’m going upstairs to Liam’s room to lay down a bit.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell him you’re up there.”

  “Thanks.” I smile. “See you later,” I tell her, giving her a kiss on the cheek and leaving those knotted up thoughts and flashes that make me lose my lucidity and bring me further away from my reality, the one I made for myself and that I defend with nail and tooth, because I don’t want to ruin everything now, when things seem to be going well, just when I think I’ve found something I’ve always been looking for.

  I go to Liam’s apartment and the door is unlocked.

  The door to our homes is always open.

  Another flash, accompanied by a dizzy spell.

  With great effort, I make it to the bedroom but before I can lay down, my stomach calls, announcing its intention to revolt against me. I turn around and go towards the bathroom and make it just in time to kneel down. As I vomit out my soul, hugging the toilet, I cry and cry some more because everything is coming to light, everything is here in front of my eyes like a bad dream that I wish I could not remember.

  Because now I know Aaron lied to me, and Jay and Patrick lied to me.

  That Liam lied to me.

  My life is a farce, a big fat lie, it’s all a bluff.

  And as I vomit the last piece of my integrity, I realize that nothing will be like it was before and that I’m one step away from losing everything.

  A step away from losing the man I love.

  27

  Liam

  “Hi, how do you feel?” I ask her.

  “Mmm.”

  “Don’t lift your head, stay down. Erin told me you got a migraine.”

  “How’d it go downstairs?” she asks me in a weak voice. She doesn’t even have the strength to speak.

  “It went,” I reply, lying down next to her, careful not to move too much. “It was—strange, but nice.”

  “Strange—why?”

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve touched a guitar and I didn’t think I’d ever pick one up again.”

  “What made you change your mind?”

  “You, Rain.”

  She turns slowly and cuddles up to me in my arms, resting her head between my neck and my shoulder.

  “You brought me back, you gave me my life back. You’ve given me hope and dreams and—love. You are the love of my life, Rain O’Donovan. Never leave me again.”

  It slipped out. I pull her tighter to me, as if it were enough to eat those last words I said. But they came out without me thinking about it, straight from my heart because it’s what I feel and I can’t contain it.

  Rain doesn’t respond, she takes a few deep breaths before lifting her head slightly, looking for my lips.

  She kisses me lightly and I fall. One, two, ten times. A free fall with nothing to slow it, like something you’d see in a film.

  I fall without hope that someone might be there to catch me and maybe I don’t even care. I want to fall, I want to crash on the ground and see my heart bounce meters away and remain unarmed on the pavement.

  I want to fall and never get up, because I feel and I know this is the last time.

  The last time I’ll hold her in my arms.

  In her kisses, there’s desperation, there’s anger, there’s resentment, desire and love.

  On her lips, there’s everything.

  On her lips I feel the bitter taste of goodbye, the last goodbye.

  So, I let Rain be mine, just this once and it’ll have to be enough.

  I let her turn on her back and I slowly pull her blouse over her head. A deep breath, maybe two or three, and I take mine off too. Then I kiss her slowly, softly, to lengthen this moment that is ours alone. I pant in her mouth and let myself be taken, without resistance, towards the end.

  My end.

  Our end.

  Rain caresses the back of my head and a shooting pain takes my breath away, like someone hit me with all his strength right in the chest so I can no longer breathe in air or life. I slide my tongue into her mouth and I invade her with me, my sense of guilt, my mistakes and my pain. She slides her hands on the buttons of my jeans and slowly unbuttons them. Every button takes five years off my lifespan.

  “Rain, are you sure?”

  She doesn’t answer, but continues to kiss me, while I try to take off my jeans which are stuck around my thighs. We separate a minute to allow me to undress, while she rests on her elbows and she looks at me sadly, defeated.

  It breaks my heart in two.

  I close my eyes a few seconds, I’m not sure this is the right thing to do: for as much as I want her, for as much as I have to feel her skin against mine, I don’t know if I can let myself go like this, melt my body with hers and then go back to my darkness, my nothingness. My life without her. I don’t know that I’ll be able to breathe without her.

  Rain takes her pants off and in a second we’re both in our underwear. And she looks at me deeply and says a few words that throw me into the abyss and chain me to it.

  “Just this one time, please.”

  I throw myself on her lips, keeping in the tears and the rage that are pushing to escape, but which I could not let out onto her.

  I kiss her as if it were the last kiss before being sentenced to death. I kiss her like tomorrow will never come. I kiss her like human beings were about to cease to exist.

  I kiss her like I never have before and like I never will again.

  I take her underpants off and she does the same with my boxers. I caress her legs slowly, rising up to the inner thigh. I feel the h
eat of her skin and the passion around her causing her to arch her back, pushing towards me. I touch her intimately and then enter her with a finger. Rain moves against me, asking me with her body to continue, to not stop to give her everything before taking it all away. She opens completely for me, she lays back and relaxes and I continue touching her intimately giving her what she needs. I brush her clitoris with my palm and she lets out a moan that I can’t resist.

  “I love you Rain,” I whisper on her skin. “I will always love you always—and however.”

  She has to know it. She has to remember it.

  I see her tears, but I don’t say anything. I swallow mine and dry hers.

  I slip another finger into her and she responds by taking me in her hand. I’m hard and she grips it tightly.

  I feel like I’m going to explode, from desire and love and something else that seems very much like desperation. And as she caresses me and makes me emit incomprehensible sounds that no one would be able to decode, I lose myself, I don’t know where, forgetting the way home, forgetting who I am, who I was and what I’ll never be.

  Rain

  “Just this once, please.” The words come out in a breath. Sad, defeated and desperate, like me.

  I’m about to lose the man I love, but I want this moment, this memory of us for myself, forever. The memory of something magical, unique and that got me to my feet even though I’m about to fall deeper and deeper into the darkness.

  I squeeze his erection and a jolt of excitement hits me repeatedly, making me a slave to this passion, that calls both of our bodies with our desire that wants to be satisfied and set aside.

  And so I guide him into me, brushing him against my legs.

  I can’t wait anymore.

  “Rain, wait—I have to…”

  I know what he’s going to say and I break him off.

  “We don’t need it,” I whisper in between hiccups.

  He stops and takes a few seconds to get a handle on his rage and bitterness that flow through his tense muscles.

  “I’m sorry—for everything,” he whispers in my ear before throwing to the wind all of his fear and entering me, slowly, but all the way.

  The burn I feel initially is unbearable and I stiffen up. “I’m sorry, I should have gone slower. I never want to hurt you.”

  “It’s okay.” I grind my teeth as the burn slowly, slowly eases up. “Don’t stop, it’s already passing.”

  He lowers himself to my face and bites me playfully on my lower lip, and I relax and open my legs to welcome him inside of me.

  “Rain,” he whispers my name five, ten, a hundred times as he moves inside of me, filling me with himself, with his love and his pain.

  I grab his shoulders and dig my nails into his skin, inviting him to push more, faster and deeper.

  I want him, all of him. Right now.

  “I feel you. I feel everything.”

  “And I feel you, Liam.”

  The tears fall without stopping, while the heat rises, while this man is inside of me, in my body, in my mind and in my soul. He is in me totally and will always be inside of me, no matter what happens.

  His movements become faster, his breathing sets my skin aflame, his desire to have me for himself, just this one time, becomes uncontainable for both of us. My hands slide down his muscular back looking for his bottom that squeezes and pushes towards me. Liam grabs my legs and pulls them up, pushing deeper into me, continuing to plunge desperately.

  Because we both are desperate at the idea of losing each other again.

  “I love you, Rain. I have always loved you.”

  I know.

  Now I know.

  And as his breathing quickens together with mine, our bodies unite and our hearts merge into one shattering pain.

  Liam comes inside me, filling me with all of the words he’s never been able to say and all the love he’ll never be able to give me.

  And I come with him, freeing my trapped soul from this life of lies, the darkness and loneliness. Freeing me from myself, freeing my mind and my heart, tied to the past and pushes and arrogantly comes back, reminding me of who I was and who I will never be.

  I cry for hours, crushed by the weight of his body on top of mine with him still inside of me. I cry without words and he cries with me. Our tears mixed together, freeing us both from things we never told each other.

  Liam falls asleep at dawn, our bodies entwined, our legs braided together, my head on his chest. And as I slide from his embrace and his love, I know that whatever happens he will always be a part of me.

  He will always be a part of me.

  I get dressed silently, I go in the bathroom and wash my face. No more tears, just this enormous weight that crushes me and oppresses me and which I have to free myself of.

  I go back in the bedroom and look at him for the last time while he’s sleeping. His face is tight and his sleep is restless. I decide to go before he wakes, before he’s forced to deal with all of this.

  I have to do it now.

  And as I go to the living room, I pick up my things and slip through the door, I feel like I’m leaving behind something. Something important. Something that belongs to me. Something I’ll never have again.

  28

  Liam

  I’m woken by the sound of the telephone. I wake up in a haze, reaching for the nightstand. I grab the phone and bring it to my ear, pushing random buttons until I find the green one.

  “Liam?”

  I sit up still in a stupor.

  “Aaron?”

  “Is Rain there with you?”

  “Yeah, she’s here,” I say, looking around but all I see is the unmade bed. “Shit, no, she’s gone!”

  “Do you know where she could be?”

  “No, she was here until a little while ago—I think. Shit, I fell asleep, I didn’t hear her leave.”

  “Can you come over to our house?”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Just come.”

  I hang up the phone and jump off the bed. I find my discarded clothes on the floor and get dressed as best I can, trying to gather my thoughts and not to think about her perfume on the fabric.

  We made love for the first time. We cried together, we were in each other’s arms for hours and then—

  Just this one time, please.

  And then she left, she left forever.

  I take my cell phone and the keys and leave.

  I know what’s waiting for me.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Come in. Aaron and Patrick are upstairs in her room,” Jay tells me.

  “She—”

  “She’s not there, Liam. We don’t know where she is.”

  “It’s all my fault.”

  “No.” Jay stops, before going up the stairs. “It’s our fault. All of us.”

  I follow him to the upstairs and I don’t know exactly what I’ll find but I can imagine. We go in her room and find Aaron sitting on her bed with his head in his hands and Patrick at the desk sitting in the same position. They don’t lift their heads and they don’t say anything. I look around and my eyes fall on the closet doors. All of her post-its are gone, or at least all of those that she had written until yesterday. There are just a few left, distributed so that everything makes sense.

  One letter on every post-it to fill up a closet.

  Three simple words that make me instinctively shut my eyes.

  Three words that take away what’s left of me.

  Three words that kill me on the spot.

  Who is Neil.

  Rain

  I go back home after spending more than two hours at the beach, sitting on the cliff and looking at the sky, hoping that it will rain and bring me something, something that would help me to understand, to reason, to find a way out.

  But the rain doesn’t come nor does a logical explanation of what’s exploding in my head.

  “I see you’re all here,” I say on seeing that all the guys are in my room.

 
; “Rain!” Aaron jumps to his feet and hugs me. “We were so worried about you.”

  I remain disarmed with my arms rigid at my sides. I don’t feel like hugging him back.

  “Are you alright?” he asks, scrutinizing my face.

  “What do you think, you idiot!” Patrick yells, coming near us. “I’m glad you’re back, honey.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I spit back. “Don’t anybody talk to me that way again. Don’t call me darling, or sweetheart or anything else that comes to mind, got it?”

  “Rain, calm down,” Jay intervenes.

  “No, I will not. You lied to me, a-all of you! I t-trusted you.” I start hiccupping and it would appear I have not exhausted my supply of tears.

  That’s when Liam approaches but keeps a safe distance away. “Don’t cry, Rain, I can’t stand to see you like this. It’s okay to be angry, to vent, take it out on me, because I’m the only guilty one.”