Goodnight M. Yang

Chapter Three - Save Me From The Rain

Chapter Three – Save Me From The Rain

"A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I too, have known autumn too long."

E. E. Cummings

~

My head hurts. I am dizzy and there is a lump in my throat. I could only tell my tears from the rain because they were warm. Even the numb of my skin in this cold could feel that. Delerium was starting to take over now.

There was this cold, feeling in my heart now as I started to laugh. It would figure things would turn out this way for me. I wasn’t important and I meant nothing. This was just how it had to be.

~

As I walked home from school that day, the bus just another sad excuse for the teenagers who didn’t have cars to laugh at one another and poke at the younger kids, I decided to stop in at a local Japanese convenience store which was on the way back to my house. It was cloudy out and it looked as if it would start to rain. While I didn’t mind coming down with something and having an excuse to miss school, I hated the cold. I hated to be cold.

While inside, a group of kids was laughing and joking around in the corner where the Japanese Hentai magazines usually sat. They were probably my age, all white with those bunny ear hats on and anime shirts. The girls had makeup on to give off the illusion that they were Asian as many of those types would normally wish they were.

I was always too afraid to say anything but the fact of the matter was that they irritated me and I could have just grabbed the closest sharp thing to me and shoved it right in their… their…

I put the metal chopsticks down as I realized my emotions were getting the better of me. My heart and stomach were still aching as I thought about what Amy might say or do once she had seen the boy there with me on the bleachers.

What is rumors started to spread about us doing the deed there? It was a very well known spot for those things to occur. Oh god, I would be known as a school whore!

My hands started to shake as I bit down so hard on my lip that blood began to ooze out. So that nobody could see my emotional outburst I sucked it down quickly and grabbed a newspaper to put in front of my face. The shop owner, Mr. Takashi, was paying more attention to the hoodlums anyway. He was familiar with my face as I never stole a thing when I went there.

Most other kids did.

Of all people in the world I could possibly feel more sorry for it was Mr. Takashi. I didn’t know his story or why he was here all hours of the day, alone, just watching kids rip him off but you could tell by how he would smile at the beautiful older women and make faces at the babies who would be held by their parents, that he was a man deeply alone.

It hurt me inside to look at him. He was someone I couldn’t bare the thought of being. Completely alone in the world being laughed at by everyone. He was just that crazy old, sort of fat, balding man who old the oriental shop off of Nevada Street. My heart hurt again.

To move my thoughts elsewhere, I began to read over the paper now. It seemed that girl’s death was not only the talk of the school but of the entire city. What took me off guard the most was that this had not been the first in the past month but the seventh.

“Teen suicides all over the city are baffling both police, parents and peers alike.” I read aloud, to myself.

The girl, the other night, was looking into my loneliness before she jumped. I could feel it. I could also feel her pain as she hit the cement below and then the wave of relief that spead as far as the eye could see.

I looked at the chopsticks again. I imagined what it would be like to jab the object into my wrist and allow the hot liquid to pool around me. Would people remember me then? Would I finally get resolution? I turned to the obituaries. There was a small box in the corner with a name, date of birth and death.

Mai Yang

She Died

Nobody Cares

Good Riddance

I could see it now. Placing the paper down, I grabbed a Japanese soda from the counter and paid the lonely Japanese man. He normally would grunt instead of count my money back to me. I suppose it was only right that he would hate me too, a man more lonely than the very moon in the sky itself.

As my luck would have it, the rain started to come down now. I was getting drenched and I knew it would lead me to get a cold. That was fine. I wanted to be alone. I wanted to hear the cell doors echo as they locked me away forever. I was the girl who would be out of everyone’s hair. Just forget about me. Don’t feed me, just leave me to rot.

Once I hit the corner just a block from my home, I pressed the crosswalk button. It was blinking red which meant that it was broken again. It usually was. I gazed around to see if any cars were coming but the rain was so thick I couldn’t see very far out.

Slowly, I stepped off the curb. A bus then rushed by and nearly hit me. My heart began to race as I stumbled backwards and prepared for a crash landing. What surprised me was that I didn’t fall.

“You should watch where you are going, Mai.” It was the boy from before. There were white ear buds in his ears. I noticed now that he was listening to my iPod.

“What are you…”

“Doing here? Saving you from another crash and burn. Want to invite me in?” He pointed to my house.

“How did you know?”

Under his black umbrella he pulled my iPod out to show me that my address was saved into the notes area of the phone. It was something my mother had done in fear I would lose something of such value.

His presence here was confusing. Why did he come all the way out here just to return it to me? I wasn’t worthy of that.

“If it makes you feel any better, I am not going to rob you. I just want to see what you saw the night she died.”

He turned in the direction of the house where the girl died. Flowers and pictures were getting soaked where friends and family had placed the items on the family’s lawn. His request was so odd. There was a half smile on his face as he stared onto the stained cement.

What a morbid hobby. It was scary. I grabbed the device from him and shoved it into my purse and then began to back up again.

“Why don’t you just leave me alone?!”

I stepped off the curb but at an awkward angle and nearly fell again. His hand reached out and took mine. It was warm, far warmer than I would have expected in this weather. He must have driven here.

“You should trust me, Mai. I am not here to harm you.”

It was dangerous. He was strange and new. Inviting him in while both my parents were gone meant he could do anything. He could rob me. He could rape me. He could kill me. The idea made my check jump as I considered the consequences. It was wrong. It was horrific.

“Sure.”

Please, do to me what I cannot seem to do to myself. Kill me.

~

A/N: It is a bit short and unedited but I had to write it fas as my life is fairly busy. I hope you all enjoy!