It Pours Page 13

  Returning to Jazlyn I was more aware of the faces in the crowd as they seemed to be watching me in the midst of Mo’s return to the deejay booth. Jazlyn said little. No doubt she was remembering a conversation warning Mo to not mess with me. I know I was remembering it and was left to wonder if that dance would be termed beyond friendly.

  One by one, I searched the faces around me. I watched to see if their dances mimicked the one I had experienced. Blondes. Brunettes. Gingers. Dancing.

  Flash of light.

  Sam.

  Off.

  On. Sam?

  Off.

  On again. Sam’s body moved through the crowd.

  Off.

  On. Sam stood in front of me. I felt her hand grab and clasp around mine. My pulse raced as she tugged me through the crowd. The music trailed behind us until it was a deafened noise locked behind a closed metal door. She pulled me out of the club and into an alley. She maneuvered me through groups of mingling women and traffic until we were nearly a block away. We entered a park at the corner of Piedmont and Tenth Avenue. Sam didn’t slow her steps until we were standing next to an empty park bench sitting by a small body of water. I felt my heartbeat pounding in my ears at the sight of Sam’s face staring at me in the moonlight.

  She was silent as she glared at me. I cursed the sweating of my palm held within hers as I felt her grip loosen to release it. I squeezed in an attempt to hold on tighter so she couldn’t let go of my hand.

  “No, don’t let go,” I begged her.

  She bit the corner of her lip and I felt myself melt in the memory of all that was her. “What are you doing here?”

  “Jazlyn invited me.”

  “I know the simplicity of what brought you here. I’m asking why you’re here.”

  The sharpness of her tone caused me to recoil. “I don’t know.”

  “Figured you’d say that.” She briskly pulled her hand from mine and turned to walk away.

  “No, Goddammit, don’t you walk away from me.” I felt a wave of nausea course through me.

  Why? Why had I said the profanity I never say? I felt the sickness in my mouth from the heated anger of it. Hadn’t I blamed my faith as much as anything for the reason I was where I was now? Wasn’t my scorn for the decision I had made somehow turned toward the religious teachings which had been shoved down my throat since I was old enough to sit in church with Charlie Grace.

  Sam turned to me with anger in her eyes. “Tell me one good reason why I should stay?” The tone of her voice was equal with her expression.

  “Because I die a little every single time you walk away from me. And honestly I’m not real sure how much of me is still alive at this point.”

  “You looked pretty alive a few minutes ago.”

  “Sam, please. Please don’t go. For some reason you found me in that club tonight. For some reason in the mass of all of those women, you saw me. Can’t we at least just acknowledge that?”

  She studied my face. “We can acknowledge that I would’ve never imagined you’d dance like that with a woman. You’ve gone from not knowing who you wanted to be to practically making out with her in front of everyone. And with her. After everything, you get with someone like her.”

  “I didn’t get with anyone. I’m not with Mo. We’re just friends.”

  “That dance was anything but friendly.” She shifted her weight on her legs and looked away from me. “Whatever. What does it matter to me now anyway?”

  “Don’t be like that, Sam. We’re just friends. Please, let’s sit down and talk.”

  She brushed the overgrown shrubbery off the back of the bench and sat down. “I really don’t think there’s much to say.”

  “Can we try?” I sat beside her and took her hand. The fingernail moon was but a sliver deep in the darkened sky. Oh, how I yearned to get lost in the blueness of her eyes. I felt the warmth of her hand in mine as I stroked my thumb against the tip of her finger. I watched her as she looked down at our hands. The street noise was all but drowned out by the call of the insects in the night. Their song took me back to a night with our toes dangling in the bayou water.

  I looked over her shoulder into the rolling hills of the small park. “The noises.” I waved my hand. “Reminds me of being back home on the bayou with you.”

  She looked up and around the park. “Yeah, but they sound different.” I saw her catch a glimpse of the charms hanging from my neck. I heard her swallow hard and wondered what she was thinking when she saw the combination of the cross and cicada looped together along the golden chain. I hope she knew I wore the chain daily but I doubt she let herself think of the way I touched them constantly when I thought of her or Meems.

  “The cicadas don’t sound the same here,” she said flatly.

  “I think those are katydids.”

  “Katy dids?”

  “There are a thousand different species of them. They say they’re named because they sound as if they’re saying ‘Katy-did.’” I was nervously rambling about a silly insect fact. “Meems would tell me…” I looked out into the water. I’m not sure if it was a reflex or intentional but Sam’s grip tightened on my hand. “One of the folklore stories is that there was a woman named Katy who was madly in love with this man. But he left her to marry another.” Her grip loosened. “They were found dead in their honeymoon bed the morning after they’d married. It was said they were poisoned but no one saw the crime. Well, no person saw the crime. They say the bugs saw what happened as they had been watching from the window. On hot summer nights, it’s said they shout from the trees to tell us who committed the crime. ‘Katy-did, Katy-did.’”

  Sam stopped a smile that tried to curl the corners of her lips. “I should’ve known you’d have a story about them.”

  I shrugged. “Guess I’m weird like that.”

  “Not weird. Different.” She faced the park. “So really, what are you doing here?” she said with a softer tone than the one she had used earlier when she asked.

  “Jazlyn invited me. Violet had to take call this weekend so she asked me to come with her.”

  I’d hoped she would look at me but instead she turned her head away even more. “And how’d you two become friends?”

  “I met her when I went to the Pineapple Post.”

  She snapped her head back and stared at me. “Why were you there? Why did you even go there?”

  “I overheard Kylie talking about it.”

  “Oh? And what? You hear the Queen Lesbian Conqueror talking about a lesbian bar and you just have to go. Please tell me you didn’t get with her after I left.”

  “Why do you say that? Why do you keep assuming I’ve been with another woman?”

  “I do believe lesbian bars are filled with lesbians. Why else go unless you’re looking for one?”

  “I wasn’t looking for another woman when I went.” I looked down at the bench. “I was looking for myself.”

  “It didn’t look that way to me. Looked like you were trying to sew some wild oats before the big wedding day. You were nearly making out with Mo on the dance floor? Geez, Rayne, why don’t you try to have some decorum and keep your little lesbian trysts discrete.”

  Bitterness. That’s what her tone held for me.

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and stared out into the tiny moon’s reflection. The glow of the skinny moon was barely enough to cause a sparkle across the small pond. I couldn’t speak for the fear of the tears toppling over so I held my words for more than I had anticipated. I felt her hand loosen to release mine. I didn’t fight it this time.

  “It’s not like that,” I finally said.

  We sat with the silence building between us. I turned to her and bent my knee to lay it on the bench. “Sam, I don’t know what all of this means. Why I’m here. I see these women being together so openly and yeah, it makes me know there is something beyond what I’ve always been taught it would be like. I understand why Jazlyn wanted me to come but it doesn’t change what I feel.”

&
nbsp; I watched her profile as she continued to stare out at anything but me. She looked thinner than I remember. The shirt she wore was baggy over her shoulders and chest. A large brown belt adorned her blue jeans and I struggled to remember seeing her in a belt in the days we had spent together. She tried to brush a strand of hair away from her eyelashes but the shortened length didn’t stay tucked behind her ear. I wondered how long she’d had her highlighted blonde hair cut this short as it rested just above her shoulders. I wanted to run my hand along the side of her head and let the defined layers flow between my fingers.

  “It doesn’t change that it’s still only you.”

  She looked at me surprised. Her mouth was slightly open with an arch of her lips.

  “Among all of these women, it’s still only you.” I picked her hand up and rubbed the back of it across my face. The taste of her skin as my lips parted against her knuckle sent a wave of butterflies through me.

  Butterflies.

  I searched her eyes. Her eyebrows softened as I traced my thumb across her jawline. The layers did fall softly between my fingers as I ran them along the back of her neck to pull her lips closer to me. I closed my eyes to the thumping of my heart with her breath upon my lips.

  Eucalyptus mint. I smiled to its scent and closed my eyes to fall into her kiss. Instead of her lips, I felt skin and opened my eyes. She held her finger against them but left her forehead to rest against mine.

  “I can’t,” she whispered.

  “Why?” I kissed her fingertip until she dropped it from my lips.

  She inhaled deeply. “I barely survived our last kiss, Stormy. I dare not attempt fate and try again.”

  “I’m so in love with you that I can’t breathe when you’re near me.” I felt the pleading in my words. I wanted badly to feel her kiss again.

  She moved on the bench and grabbed the hand I had resting across the back of the wood. “And this?” She tapped the ring on my left hand.

  Dammit all to the hell. That fucking ring. Why in the hell did I wear that fucking ring tonight?

  “Aren’t you engaged to Grant?”

  “Sam…don’t. Don’t bring that up right now.”

  “Why not, Rayne?”

  “Because.” I looked up at the moon. “Because I know I’m not marrying him.”

  “Does he know that?”

  I placed my hands across her face and urged her to look into my eyes. To read them as I knew she could. “I’m telling you I love you. Please don’t do this. I need time. We need time. Time to get it all worked out. It’s not easy for me and I know it’s not easy for you.”

  “But you said yes. You didn’t have to say yes. I was there. I was in that room when he proposed. You had me but you let me go and you said yes.”

  I shook my head vigorously. “No, no. That’s not true and you know it. I didn’t let you go that night. You left. There’s a big difference. I know what I asked that night wasn’t right. I know my mistakes but I needed you to stay and help me work it all out. Be with me and support me while I did. But you said you couldn’t. It broke every single part of me when you left. Not a moment goes by that I don’t think about you.” Reflexively I reached up and rubbed the cicada charm. “I didn’t say yes. I didn’t say anything. He and Charlie Grace started planning things as if I had. I was just too broken and numb to argue.”

  “Rayne, you wanted me to fit into your perfect picture. You wanted me to guarantee you what it would be like so you could plan it out just like you plan everything in your life out. But life’s plan isn’t a guarantee. It’s ever changing and you have to be ready to make those changes. I couldn’t and wouldn’t be that for you. Don’t you get it?”

  “No, not really. We could’ve been together while I made those changes.”

  “But I needed you to make the changes on your own. I needed you to realize who you were without it being dependent on me..”

  I dropped my hands in my lap. “So, I’m to blame for losing us because I wasn’t ready or because I didn’t know who I was. I don’t think that’s fair. You showed me a life I’d never imagined. Loving you changed everything I had ever seen my future to be and you left because I didn’t accept all of those changes immediately. As if something like that wouldn’t take time to adjust to.”

  “No, it’s not fair and it’s not entirely you. I let you take the blame for it. I’m sorry for that.” For the first time she reached for my hand. “Stormy, you changed me too. You changed everything I saw for my future too. I saw you. I saw us. I wanted us so bad. For as hard as it was for you, it was equally hard for me. I didn’t know who that person was or how to even be someone’s girlfriend. I ran.”

  “But you’re here now. It’s not too late. We can have another chance. We can work it all out together.”

  “I can’t, Stormy. I’m not back.” She stuttered on her words. “And…I’ve got someone I need to get back to.”

  “Oh.” I let go of her hand and tucked mine between my thighs. “I see.”

  “No, you don’t.” She pulled her knee up against her chest. “Because I still don’t fully see myself. I’m still trying to figure out me. In much the same way as you’ve been trying to find you, I’ve been trying to find myself. I didn’t know what I truly wanted until you showed me.” She pulled at the frayed strands of the hole in her jeans. “I didn’t tell you why I was here. My parents are getting a divorce. Mother finally asked the old bastard for a divorce. I’m here for her. See Rayne, he had it all planned out too. His whole life, her, me. We were all according to his plan. And then one day we weren’t. I don’t want to be my mother. She stayed in his plan until the day she couldn’t breathe. I want my own plan. I want to know my own path. You showed me how much more of life I wanted. I fell so hard for you that I forgot the reality of the situation. I wanted the fairy tale.”

  She faced me and wiped a tear from my cheek that I hadn’t realized had fallen.

  “Falling in love with you made me realize I wanted more than sex, more than one-night stands. I want it all. I want love and sacrifice and commitment. I want the woman who loves me to fight against all consequences of what it means to do so. Maybe if you hadn’t changed that in me then I could be what you’re asking of me. But I can’t. I can’t wait on the sidelines or hide in the closet loving you in secret while you pretend we’re only friends. Even if it isn’t about just Grant. You’re not ready to live in anything but secret. I’m sorry. I want the fairy tale. But the truth is, the fairy tale is mine to make. To me, it’s all about timing. We weren’t ready for one another. We still aren’t.” She stood, ran her fingertips underneath her eyes and brushed the bench dust from her jeans. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I will always love you.”

  “So this is goodbye again?” I could hardly get the words out as I was desperately holding back a volcano of sobs.

  “I hope not.” She turned and walked away. The silhouette of her in the darkness all but disappeared until I saw it change direction. She stopped walking as she passed under a sidewalk lamp. She leaned her back against the pole and stood still for several moments. I thought I saw her head turn back in my direction but I wasn’t sure. I sat on the bench, hoping she would start walking back for me. I ached for her words to not be truth and for her to run back to me filled with regret for saying them. She didn’t. I never dreamed it possible to hurt as much as I did the night she left me after Grant’s proposal.

  No. This time I wouldn’t sit waiting for her to come back to me. This time I would go to her. I stood from the bench and began sprinting toward her. For a moment, I believed she was waiting for me at the light. But then she raised her hand in the air for me to stop, pushed her back off the post and hurried out of the park. She didn’t look back again.

  Chapter

  “Mo, you were slamming tonight. I mean slamming.” A brown headed girl who looked to be all of twenty-one stumbled over to our table.

  A friend of hers followed closely behind and pulled at her arm as she tried to
rein her back to their table. The drunken girl braced herself by grabbing the edge of our tabletop.

  “I danced my fucking ass off,” she said far too loudly and with a bit too much slur to be appropriate in the IHOP diner.

  Mo’s eyes widened before she placed her hand on top of the girl’s. “Thanks. Glad you had a good time.” She waved to the waitress as she walked by a table closest to us. “Will you bring them a pot of strong coffee and put it on my tab?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I sure will.”

  “I’m so sorry.” The soberer of the two said as she reached the table. “It slipped up on her tonight.” She wrapped her arms around the other girl and motioned her to come back with her to their table.

  “What? Huh? Where we going?” she slurred as she tumbled into the girl’s arms.

  “No worries.” Mo smiled.

  “Thanks for the coffee,” she said as she pulled her friend back.

  “Anytime. Get her home safely.”

  “Will do.”

  Mo removed the newsboy cap, tossed it into the seat next to her, and shook her hair out with her fingers. The long locks tumbled over her shoulders.

  “New addition?” I pointed to the streak of blue-dyed hair that was about two inches wide and ran from the root of her scalp down to the tip of her hair.

  I hadn’t noticed it before when we were dancing. Had I really noticed anything other than her piercing stare as her body molded into mine? It was hard to think about anything, especially our dancing, with the sadness of watching Sam walk away weighing so heavy in my thoughts.

  The bass clef tattoo disappeared into her tresses as she ran her fingers through the blue colored streak. “Yeah, pretty new.” She leaned over the white formica table. “Don’t change the subject.”

  I sat back surprised. I knew my attention was half-assed but I didn’t realize I had changed any subject or even that there was a subject to change. “I didn’t think we had a subject.”