Rain

Glaring at the windshield wipers as they slapped uselessly across the rain drenched glass, frustrated with their ineffectuality, she drummed her fingertips against the steering wheel. A major highway, an interstate for Pete's sake... limping along at forty miles per stinking hour. "It's just water," she thought to herself as she surged forward into the other lane, "not ice, snow, sleet, or hail. Just friggin' water." However, as she began to move forward in the other lane, her wipers became more of a failed attempt than a success, she realized just how hard the rain was coming down. Late morning, but the sky was dusk dark, lighting arced across the sky, thunder boomed so loudly that it shook her car and still she limped along the interstate, praying for a break in the flood so she could get where she needed to be.

Not impatient, really, more like single minded. Mid-twenties, attractive, she was a girl you knew was pretty but couldn't really pin down why. She wasn't a striking beauty, but moved with purpose so even in motion, she commanded attention. But if you looked close enough, hard enough, or deep enough, you learned it was the eyes. Plain blue eyes, but with depths unfathomable. And in those depths, pain. You might never learn more about her, but you knew there was pain. The ones who looked rarely saw it, and she had worked a long time to see to that. Years of hellish nightmares taught her to hide herself under layers of brick and mortar. Simply put, even if you were lucky enough to have her, you had nothing. And there had been those who had tried. Looking at her, you saw the unattainable, not the reason behind it. So she became an object. Something to be had. But when it was all over, she was left feeling vaguely let down, detached. Thinking to herself, "You've touched me, held me, wrapped yourself in me, but you don't even know me." Then she pushed them away. It wasn't that she didn't care or that she was heartless, she was just waiting for the one person who could have her. The one person who could touch her and in doing so, reach her.

She began fumbling with the radio, cursing under her breath, still stuttering along at a crawl, smiling a bit when she found a good song to sing along with. No, not one of her talents, but sing she did... loudly. And that good song flowed into another good song and before she knew it, she was at her exit. Flipping the signal, she merged into the exit lane and let her mind think ahead.

He was waiting for her, likely lying in his bed, reading some poetry or maybe a book that he'd read a hundred times before. Smiling to herself, she saw him lying there, one arm under his head, the other holding the book. Smoke trailing from the cigarette he surely had resting in the ashtray by the bed. An open can of soda just within reach. He was a man of simple joys. She was going to be late, almost an hour late, but he would greet her at the door with a smile, a hug, a kiss. He would just fold her in his arms, tell her how happy he was to see her, and they would move to his bedroom, likely watch some incredibly stupid cartoon, and laugh... God would they laugh.

At each stop light, she groomed a bit. The Main St. intersection saw her pulling a brush through her hair; Chapel Rd, lipstick; Bloughton Dr., mascara. He wouldn't care, but it felt good to look her best for him. Oh, he'd notice, sure. But he saw past that. Pretty trappings were fine, but he didn't just look at her eyes, he saw them. By the time she hit the last block before road, she was stuffing the things she would carry in the house with her into a plastic grocery store bag that was lying on the floor of her car. It may not keep them bone dry, but it would help.

Smiling, feeling the tinge of anticipation zing through her veins, making her heart jump and her butt wiggle just a bit in the seat, she pulled out on to his street. Watching the other drivers blow past, rushing to some place or another, miserable in their lives and not knowing why, she couldn't help the smug grin that crept across her face. These poor lonely miserable bastards were driving in this gloomy rain, this godforsaken downpour, all rushing to their respective nothing. Rushing, absolutely racing to the pills, the bitter acidic pills that their lives had become. But not her. She was screaming her way to him.

Flicking her blinker one more time, she pulled into his driveway. She slung her computer case over one shoulder, grabbed the bag with her purse, cell phone, change of clothes, and makeup bag with the other hand and threw the car door open. She hit the pavement nearly at a run, trying in vain to dodge rain drops. She knocked and then, all the wait, all the rain, the idiot drivers, it all faded. He was there, smiling his own little smile. His eyes saying, in more ways than he could express with words, how happy he was to see her. They made their way back to his room where, sure enough, he'd been reading, smoking, and drinking soda. "Somehow, it just works on him," she thought. The quiet, poetic smoker thing just fit him somehow.

He pulled her against him, one arm around her waist, and pressed a kiss to her hair whispering, "Hello angel." She smiled, suddenly calm and contented. Who knew that life could be this good, this complete?