Out Here Alone
He hears the leaves and dry, fallen branches, crackle beside him, and without looking up he says, “You ever just stand out here and think?”
He can imagine the look on her face as she chuckles and says, “No, not in the middle of a rainstorm.”
Raining. Huh. He hadn’t even noticed, but of course, now that her words have been processed in his brain, he realizes that he is soaking wet and more than a little cold. She must see him shiver, because she moves the large umbrella, covered in cats and dogs, so that it shelters him, too. “It wasn’t raining when I came out here,” he offers, like it’s a reason for staying out after it had started raining. It wasn’t even a light rain either - he must have been more lost in his thoughts than he knew.
“Well, it is now, and there are these wonderful structures called houses, most of them are even water proof! What do you say, wanna give one a try?” Her tone is sarcastic, but without looking at her, he knows she’s still smiling. She’s always smiling.
He doesn’t say anything, and neither does she; letting him have his moment. The heavy rain clouds have filtered the sunlight into a grey half-light, and everything is silent except for the falling rain. Even birds had more sense than him, and are hiding quietly in their nests, waiting for the sun to come out again.
He doesn’t remember why he had come out here in the first place, and maybe that was his goal all along, but still, he isn’t quite ready to go back to whatever he had tried to escape from. “In a minute,” he says, but she doesn’t respond. He shoves his hands in his pocket, and she links her arm through his, resting her head on his arm, not quite tall enough to reach his shoulder. The rain patters on the umbrella and drips off the sides, and he thinks that whatever he is hiding from can’t be all that bad.