This is absolute garbage....ahh wells...if you read this at all...enjoy I suppose...do your best to ignore the uhh...many many spelling and grammar errors
Warning: Mentions of homosexuality
I used to love the rain. It was like a cleansing wave that would wipe away all the horrors of the world and purge it of evil. At least that was what I kept thinking, and it felt right to be like that. The war had ended with terrible consequences on both sides, but the moment the treaties were signed and the people were lifted away to hospitals regardless of which side they were on, the rain had come. Both sides hadn’t even cared about being enemies anymore and ended up laughing and cheering together, the blood washing away with gunpowder and leaving the field a dirty mucky colour that’s so natural and forgotten.
Then I had met her. It’s not right to fall in love with someone out of your league. I shouldn’t have stayed her friend after that, but it’s hard to let something like that go even if the feelings are one sided and I managed to delude myself into thinking that I could just live on being near her. At least it was better than watching her from afar.
It was much later that I realised how wrong that was. The first few months after realisation was fine, I managed to disguise it all and pretend I didn’t notice how warm she was or how she smelt. Then it started to get harder. Smelling her scent made me giddy and I had to restrain myself from doing anything that would constitute as more than friendly. Eventually I began to live for touching her, just small things that most people wouldn’t even notice but the half a second brush against her skin would feel like a lifetime’s worth of caressing.
Writing this down, it makes it seem sort of stupid. Sappy even, but I could not deny the fact that she was the only woman that made me feel this way. This is off on a tangent though, so I’ll head back to what this has to do with the rain. As I said before, I loved the rain, it meant a lot to me after the war and it didn’t matter that most people didn’t even know that the war had raged at all, it just felt nice to go home and know that you had saved everybody around you one more time and could feel proud to belong in a place you’re certain you have no right being.
My friends are all determinedly annoying and perhaps it was through multiple teases of asking me if I liked anyone that made me realise that perhaps I should never reveal what I felt for her. It became more and more obvious that she would only ever think of me as a friend when we breached the topic of having crushes and people that we like, and I don’t think I let her see how it felt to pretend I didn’t feel disappointed but I’m not perfect and I was never a great actor. It didn’t help matters that she seemed to be able to read me so well.
Despite the fact that I was so completely broken over the war, probably because so many of my comrades had fallen, I felt that perhaps I could indulge myself for one night. Not with her, because I knew that would do nothing but bring me heartache, so I settled for sating a curiosity I had about slitting your wrists. It’s not a healthy curiosity and I’m not quite sure I was exactly sane at the time, but with a courage boost of alcohol I managed to slice it down in one long stroke.
The first thing you’d probably notice is the blood. Originally nothing like this actually hurts it just feels weird and then starts to sting a little if you touch it. I have never really considered breaking the skin because of the obvious psychological reasoning behind it, but I wanted to know and intoxication goes a long way to boost your courage.
Now before this gets any messier, I’ll explain that it wasn’t raining because if it was raining I would have curled up somewhere and gone to sleep. Sad to say, it was a clear night and the alcohol was in my system. I don’t rightly know how she knew where I was or what I was doing, but she walked into the park and almost killed me for even attempting something as stupid as that.
It was while she was ranting that I realised how completely I had fallen for her and that I’d never be able to ignore the feelings that were coursing through my veins. She had tied up the wound and was dragging me back to her place to clean it and bandage it up but all I could do was admire her from behind. The night air was flowing around us and it tossed her hair in different directions that were so random but seemed choreographed.
Somehow she managed to shove me onto her bed and I sat there silent and a little confused. The alcohol was still in my system and it might have been the blood loss but she looked perfect here. She was wandering back and forth and gathering bandages and the like to help fix my arm and I was staring at her with not so innocent fantasies running through my mind. Time was disconcerting and all I knew was that she was suddenly sitting next to me and ordering me to hold still and show her my arm. I obeyed, possibly because of her tone, possibly because of my lack of ability to do anything else in her presence.
She was gentle and I barely even registered that she had finished before she told me to sleep and try to relax. I never regretted not telling her about being a soldier until then to explain why a wound didn’t seem like much to me, but she just pushed my down so that I was lying on the bed before tucking me in. Her bed was comfy compared to my usual bed of lying on a ground and I managed to forget that I had ever been in a war or ever fought to keep people’s lives safe.
I don’t know how but I suppose I must have told her to stay, because she was lying next to me and platonically told me to sleep. I slept, and for perhaps the first time in years I managed to sleep without nightmares of being the last one left standing on a war front. The next thing I knew, I was waking up to the sound of rain and she was sleeping curled up next to me, my arm around her waist. I knew that if I moved I’d probably wake her so I stayed that way, but I couldn’t help the desire that coursed through me or the need to kiss her.
When she turned and curled up against me, I gave into temptation and kissed her. It wasn’t an earth shattering experience because technically she was still sleeping, but when she started to respond and kissed me back. I pulled away instantly. She was looking at me expectantly as if she was waiting for me to do something and I guess I panicked but then again, she was probably just waiting for an apology from me for doing something so…not friendly.
I pretty much jumped out of bed with practiced ease of years in the army and shrugged on my jacket as I practically ran out of the house. I felt like an idiot and I probably looked like one so I stumbled in the general direction of my place. I hadn’t realised that I had a state of the art hangover or the fact that the rain was soaking me to the bone until I walked into the quiet confines of my apartment. The furnishings were sparse and similar to the army barracks.
I made coffee and took a shower before preoccupying my confused mind with cleaning up my apartment. I had received a notice asking me to return to the army a few weeks ago. The point of not going was to stick around here and near her, but considering I had stuffed that up royally with a kiss that was burned into my memory, I figured I should answer the summons and do something I should have done years ago. Disappear; from her life, from her world, forever.
This leads to the reason I don’t love rain as much, also explains why I’m lying on a hospital bed with shrapnel being removed from my leg and stitches down the side of my arm. I don’t scar easily, and I know that, but I’m wondering if maybe I’ll scar this time when she walks into the room. To doctor fixing my leg looks up at her and asks her to wait until after he’s done before talking to his patient. She nods and heads back outside to the chaos where the rest of my contingent is getting a check up for surviving. I was probably the worst one since I was directly in the line of fire and playing decoy, but I couldn’t complain, I had saved them again and managed to live through it, though I’m not quite sure why.
Someone had carried me in from the field after we had usurped the tyrant that was trying to destroy us and shoved me into a hospital bed and told a passing doctor to heal the saviour of this war. I had laughed but that had only ended in me coughing up blood from my wounds and the doctor had instantly set to work and sent me into ER. Waking up had been an interesting experience. I felt a whole lot better, as though I had been sleeping for a while and the doctor had even assured me that I had but it didn’t feel like it.
Apparently they had to wait for my blood count to go back up before attempting to remove the shrapnel in my leg and I hadn’t had enough strength to argue so they had waited a few more days before setting to work, which technically brings me back to the reason why I’m lying in a hospital bed with a doctor pulling out the last pieces of shrapnel from my leg.
“Done!” he exclaimed, washing his hands and setting a bandage onto my leg before shuffling out and telling her to come in.
I didn’t know what I was expecting. Possibly her with another man, a wedding ring on her hand, something equally embarrassing that told me she had forgotten all about the kiss, but there was nothing. She stood there staring at me for a while, as though assessing that I was indeed in one piece before she sat down next to the bed. I tried to control my breathing and the level of concentration I was using must have shown on my face because she told me to relax.
“How’d you find me?” I asked, the question having pestered me from the moment she had stepped through that door.
“A man called and said that you were in hospital and something about rewarding that saviour,” she replied. I just laughed and then winced when it pulled at wounds that shouldn’t be tampered with. She looked at me quizzically.
“Why did you leave?” she finally asked, and though I was expecting that, I didn’t really have an answer for it.
“I dunno,” I replied truthfully, staring out the door and hoping someone would come in and demand that she leave so that I could rest or some garbage like that.
“You just rolled out of bed and disappeared, like you’d never even existed,” she persisted. The memory of her lips on mine edged into focus and I needed to concentrate on the pot plant in a corner to pretend that I didn’t dream of doing it to her now that she was in the same room as me.
“I figured you wanted me to leave,” I replied, wondering if that pot plant was actually real or fake.
“I didn’t want you to leave,” she replied, her voice timid and I couldn’t help but look at her.
She was biting her lip as if she was worried about my reaction but her eyes were searching. I frowned. This was getting very complicated for something so simple.
“I love you. Have for some time. Stuff like this isn’t usually reciprocated, I just figured you’d want me gone for having taken advantage of you,” I said. I didn’t really notice that I had let it slip that I loved her, but then again I was back to watching the pot plant and wondering if I could actually walk that far and if I’d ever be able to walk properly again.
“You love me?” she asked, the astonishment in her voice bit deep and I couldn’t help wincing from the figurative pain.
“Yes,” I replied, unable to deny something that I had no way of denying.
“I…I umm…love you too,” she murmured. I turned my head a little too fast and had to bite down to avoid puking as nausea stabbed at me. She looked determined and perhaps a little shy but I couldn’t believe it and I was beginning to think I had died already. Then it occurred to me what was going on and began to laugh.
“Good one,” I said, “for a moment there I actually believed you.” She looked hurt and I wondered if I had been wrong.
“I do love you,” she said, her voice was firm and she was looking into my eyes with a certainty that made my heart race a little more and the temperature to increase a few degrees above standard.
“I’d kiss you, but I’m kinda sick and feeling dead,” I said after a few minutes of silence. She just laughed and kissed me on the forehead and told me to sleep.
“I’ll be here when you wake up,” she said, brushing her lips against my temple before settling into the chair and taking a book out to read.
I let my mind wander and darkness enfolded me within sleep.
I guess I must have woken up screaming because she was telling me to wake up and her arms were wrapped around me, her words soothing me and calming me as I became lucid. The doctor came running in and then relaxed when he saw that I wasn’t in a critical condition but was worried nevertheless when she told him I had had a nightmare. He gave me a drug to help me sleep without dreams and I sank back into the abyss that was darkness.
Months later, I was on the mend and the nightmares had pretty much stopped since I was sleeping with her every night. The wounds had healed, everything was back to normal except for the fact that we were together. I know it ain’t exactly orthodox for a person to love someone of their own sex, but it’s only her and I have no eyes for anyone else. I don’t know why, but every time I’m with her, I feel like I’m free and I can do anything I want to do and no one can change that.
I’m going back to the army today. I was recalled to active duty to fight a war that everyone knows about but no one knows how to survive in. I’ve told her and she looks sad but I know that when I come back, she’ll be right here waiting for me…forever…
I used to love the rain. Now, I know there are some things even more cleansing, more pure and more beautiful than the rain. Now I know there's love itself.
"amused"
and now it's back to work....
