The Citizen Soldier (DNF)

33) Reunited

*George POV*

Even though it really was a nice day in the rain, one that I was already enthusiastic about spending a day in, something just kept bugging me. At first I thought that maybe it was my abandonment of my post at the river, but I disproved that by reminding myself that I'd taken very long breaks without anxiety before, even just months ago. So what was it that was making me so nervous and finicky?

Clay was acting nervous and finicky. I didn't understand exactly what was going on, but he seemed extremely anxious about something. He'd checked his phone a little bit ago, and then made a call to Eret, telling him that we were going to be in the park on north 17 street. I was confused about the oddly specific place, but I followed him nonetheless.

Distantly I wondered if it was the mass amounts of caffeine that he must have ingested that morning. Now we were walking down the sidewalk in the pleasant rain, veering around puddles with our hoods over our hair. It felt wrong, all grown-up and serious on a whimsical day such as this. I smiled, deciding to take the initiative.

I pulled my hood off of my head, giving the warm rain free access to my scalp, which tickled a little bit, making me giggle like a child. The movement and sound caught Clay's attention, that's for sure. My smile grew wild as I started to run and jump around, not wanting to get too far away from Clay, who had stopped on his tracks.

I ran behind him and jumped squarely into a pretty big puddle of water, the splash so big that I thought for a moment that it would actually reach Clay, even though he was over a meter away from me. I looked at him playfully, almost an invitation to goof off for no other reason than to have some fun.

I saw a smile tug at the corner of his lip as he looked at me from an angle, like he was confused or didn't know what I was doing. I rolled my eyes completely discreetly and jumped in another one that wasn't nearly as big, though it was much closer to him. The water splashed his legs as he shook his head and shrugged, a laugh in his eyes.

This time I full-on kicked water at his leg, which prompted him to splash me back, which continued for a while before I decided to go mobile, sprinting down the sidewalk and jumping in every puddle that I saw. I was laughing freely and just having childish fun in the rain with my best friend.

*Clay POV*

It was interesting, this interaction. It seemed like he was basically just trying to play around with me. Of course, I gave in, but it didn't make it any less fun or nostalgic to do. The caffeine high must have been doing something to my mood because I was so unspeakably bad at not having a massive migraine. I tried to calm myself down, but it didn't work. Probably some sort of chemical imbalance knowing the sheer volume of coffee that I drank that morning.

The only problem now was that every time I moved too fast with my head, everything throbbed for a couple of seconds, and when too much or not enough blood was pumping to my head, I felt every heartbeat like a railroad spike through the skull. I put my teething cube in my mouth and started to chew on it to prevent me from absolutely destroying my cheek and played with George like a child.

The whole interaction was like it used to be with my sister, so it all felt so familiar that it actually hurt for a little while. Trying to distract myself from the memory and mood was completely impossible and I almost didn't want to. It felt like that one time when we were playing wet soccer with our dad in the old field at the school. The kicking and splashing and trying to catch George made me start to giggle and run around like a ten-year-old kid playing with his family.

The only problem that I saw with the memory was that looking back, I could see all the warning signs. I could see all the little movements that I use, all the evidence of sleep deprivation, all the evidence of mild malnutrition, all the evidence of pain. I stopped dead in my tracks as the memory appeared around me in mono-yellow, like an old photograph.