Chapter Eleven
To an unsuspecting bystander from our homely suburbs, two college dropouts sitting on a bench with food from Chipotle would’ve raised suspicion about drugs, but we were no longer at home, and therefore, two college dropouts out on a park bench at night with Mexican paper bags was perfectly acceptable.
“Ugh, so I’m stuffed,” Austin complained. He crumpled up his tin foil and stuffed it in his bag.
I smacked him in the arm. “I told you not to order two goddamn burritos!”
He looked at me and rubbed his arm in the spot where I punched it. “But they tasted so good!” he protested.
“That doesn’t mean you have to eat two of them!”
“Says the girl who grabbed half of the sugar packets to go,” Austin deadpanned. Just to prove his point, he reached into my pocket and pulled out a little brown packet. Ripping it open, he poured half of the sugar into his hand and put the half empty packet into my hand. “Although I completely understand why you’re obsessed with these things,” he added as he tossed the crystals into his mouth.
I laughed at him and ate the rest of the sugar. “You’re such a hypocrite.”
He smirked. “Of course. It’s part of my appeal.” He made a bad attempt at winking at me.
“Tell yourself that,” I retorted. Standing up, I extended my non-sticky hand in his direction and pulled him up. “Come on, sugar babe. We still need to find a hotel.”
He grabbed my hand, and I hoisted him up and pulled him down the sidewalk with me, all while he was trying to pour the rest of the sugar crystals into his mouth. Behind me, I could hear strands of laughter, halfway full but still muffled by the sealed feeling that forms in the throat after swallowing a shitload of sugar. When I turned back around, he was trying desperately to gulp down some of his drink to wash away some of the saccharine residue. Needless to say, he was failing miserably, so I stopped out of pity. He didn’t seem to realize this, and we ended up colliding.
“Umph! What was that for?” Austin asked, rubbing his shoulder dramatically. Strangely enough, I wasn’t even tall enough to reach his shoulder.
I reached up and smacked his hand away from his shoulder. “Drama queen,” I said playfully. Smiling, I snatched his water bottle out of his hand and smiled. “You suck at multi-tasking.” Just for extra emphasis, I grabbed the hem of my shirt and wringed out the water.
He made some sort of manly-pride sound before taking back his water bottle. “I was doing perfectly fine.”
“Well that explains why you had water running dripping down your chin.”
“A few drops are nothing compared to being soaked in a bottle of water,” he protested.
Maybe it was just my natural hatred of being wrong, or maybe it was just the uncomfortable fact that the water was starting to seep into my pants, but either way, I found myself grabbing the water bottle, again, and tossing the remaining water over his already soaked body. A split second later, he was reaching into my pocket and ripping sugar packets over my head. Eventually, water turned into paper bag shreds and sugar became pieces off a tin foil ball. By the time we were done, we were little more than two soggy, sticky, shiny lumps. I looked over at Austin; he had a piece of paper stuck to his chin and a tiny sliver of foil was hanging over the cleft of his lip like a booger.
Smirking, I pointed to the matching location on my own face. “You’ve got a little something there.”
Austin must’ve been aware of the shape, or at least the implications I was making. Starting at the proximal end of his forearm, he made a loud, snorting noise while wiping away the foil snot. When he was done, he took in a deep breath and grinned. “Do you see any more?” he asked playfully as he turned his nose up.
I walked over and reached up to his head. “You have some right here,” I replied with a flick off his cheek, “although I have to say, it’s a very nice look on you.”
He puffed out his chest and swaggered down the street before turning back around to run his finger under my chin. “Why thank you, my lady,” he said in a mock accent. “Care to join me in a dance?”
When most girls dream of dancing with their high school crush, they imagine doing it at prom, in a fancy dress with her best friends surrounding her to witness the moment. I never went to prom, and I certainly didn’t waste four hundred dollars on a frilly, pink prom dress, so I wouldn’t know how that feels, so I have to settle for dancing with my high school crush on a sidewalk in Pittsburgh, god-knows-how-many miles away from home in t-shirt and jeans that were soaked in water, dusted with sugar, and topped with Chipotle packaging.
And it was still just as magical as it would’ve been if I were wearing some overpriced bundle of frills. Maybe it was the fact that our version of events was just as ridiculous as a typical prom set up, only ridiculous in a different sense. Of course, the romantic that got me into this mess four years back insisted that Austin was the deciding factor in all of this. The reasonable half of my brain insisted it was just a sugar high, but none of that changed the fact that I was dancing with Austin Tyler on a Pittsburgh sidewalk under the streetlights.
After a few minutes, Austin decided to make things interesting by attempting to twirl me, but our hands stuck together for a moment too long, and we both ended up falling to the ground in fits of laughter. If they haven’t done so already, the remaining of the fearless pigeons flapped their wings frantically, whirling up the first of the autumnal, fallen leaves, in an effort to find shelter from us. It wasn’t long before we were both squarely entangled in a wrestling match in the streetlight-lit leaves.
It wasn’t long before the leaves underneath us were all flung aside and pinned to the concrete; by then, it was just the two of us, lying side by side with our backs to the ground. Neither of us said anything, but it was still the best I’ve felt in a long time.
Austin must’ve felt it too; he started to turn over onto his side to face me. I did the same, but as I was rolling over, a drop of water fell on my nose, and I scrunched up my nose. I didn’t realize I was doing it until Austin started laughing at me and mocking my nose scrunching.
“Whoever smelt it, dealt it,” he teased.
I stuck my tongue out at him. “You’re so mature!” I retorted, not that I was being any more mature than he was. Another drop of water hit my eye, and I rubbed it away.
“The fumes are just so corrosive your eyes can’t take it?”
“Corrosive my ass. It’s raining!”
He turned his face up to the sky. “I don’t feel anything,” he said slowly. He kept his eyes on the clouds, and a few moments later, a big, fat drop splattered all over his forehead. Time seemed to freeze for just a split second while he figured out what just happened before a small smile started to creep up onto his face. Before I could even come up with a witty remark, he pulled me up and started spinning me around all while laughing like a complete and utter maniac.
Eventually, we slowed down to a winding embrace. The rain around us was now falling at a steady pace. “What was that for?” I asked breathlessly.
He reached up to his face and flicked some of the water off his eyelashes. “Remember when you told me you liked rain? Back in freshman year?”
I nodded. “And you said you liked it too.”
He smiled. “Yeah. Well, since then, I’ve always wanted to play in the rain with someone. I’ve kind of hoped I could do it with Kellie, except she hates the rain, but you’re just as important to me as Kellie is.” He paused, as if he was trying to figure out something else to end his speech with, but he came up empty handed, so instead, he pulled me into a tight hug.
I buried my face into his chest. He had an inexplicable warm smell, even when he was soaking wet. Smiling, I squeezed a little harder, not ready to let go of the moment. It was completely and utterly perfect, and it always should’ve been this way.
Nothing ever lasts, though. Austin eventually broke the hug. With a big grin, he grabbed my hand and started jogging. “This rain’s not going to last forever.”
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If anyone's as into rain as I/Sam/Austin is, go to rainymood.com. It's amazing :]