Some Place Better Than Here

Chapter 21: The Wind Cries Mary

It was the same thing with our house. It was a prime piece of real estate that Jim could have easily sold. He received offers on our house from eager developers all the time. Half a million dollars? Okay, Okay fine, Jim you say? How about a million dollars?

A whole fuckin' million-dollars! But, it was his parents' house, and apparently, his grandfather purchased it when Danae's Bay was a shipping port, and he didn't want to let that go. So, it wasn't really Lester dying that was devouring him; it was the fact that there was now one less person around from the past.

And that tore him up because Jim liked the past better. If I had to guess why, it was because the past was a time before there was me.

Two days later, when I was walking home from work, I felt a speckle of something moist land on my tank top exposed shoulder. A moment later, I felt more drops on my arms. When I looked down at the ground, I saw that the sidewalk was spotted with what looked like tiny gray holes. So, it could only be the sky, not somebody, spitting on me.

Earlier at work, Danny had walked in.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey."

It didn't take long after the first spit-fall for the air to smell soggy, but right then, the only thing on my mind were the few short words we had said to each other.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

A gust swept my hair into my mouth.

"I think we should stop."

I had to reach my finger into my mouth about three times before scooping all the hair out.

"Stop what?"

The concrete bled into a darker shade of gray with each bullet of rain that pelted against it.

"Hanging out," he said, after a slight hesitation. I repeated the phrase because I didn't quite grasp what he meant by "hanging out."

"Yeah. Hanging out," he said again. And then he mumbled something about how everything's been difficult lately or something like that. And to save him the effort of breaking up with me, I just said: "Okay."

"Okay?" he repeated.

"Yeah, okay."

"Okay," he said and left.

And then the next thing I knew, I was ringing through a customer's jug of orange juice like he'd never been there, and like, breaking up with me at my work. I didn't even know we were dating.

Soon enough, the sidewalk was one solid shade of dark gray, like it had never been another color to begin with. The pouring rain steadily pummeled my back, and when the weight was too heavy for the leaves that caught their fall, they broke down on me, all at once. At first I was angry that I was soaking and that my hair, which I had spent all morning straightening, was stringy. But like always, I got used to the rain. Once the world exhausted all of its steam, like a breath it held on too, I felt cold for the first time in weeks. It felt sorta pure. Clean. I realized I wasn't surprised that it was storming. I just should have prepared for one.

By the time I made it home it was dark; the cloudy day had cast an early night. The wet and black roads were bright with the glow of the orange streetlights. And from the bay below, the ocean sounded violent despite the momentary lull in the rain. The cold wind still came about in senseless circles, stretching over the puddles made in the depressed pavement, shredding water off the surfaces.

While passing Jim's truck and then staggering up the front steps, all I could think of was the warm shower I was so looking forward to taking after that long and drenching walk home.