Mornings are the hardest, because every time I wake up I must re-learn the fact that he is gone.

Yesterday.

I look out the window. It looks like rain. Can’t be, the forecast called for sun. I turn on the TV. The forecast hasn’t changed. I return to my desk.

Splat… splat… splat…

I look up. It’s raining. It’s raining buckets out there, raining like it hurts. I try to get back to work. Can’t focus. Something about that rain… I can’t block it out, not by homework, or music, or TV.

I put on a skirt and flip-flops. I’m dressed to get wet. I grab my umbrella. I go outside.
Cars driving down the street cause tsunamis. Edge away from curb… edge… edge… I enter the park. Suddenly, the noise of the street disappears. It smells so good here, the grass and flowers. Nature smells always remind me of my grandparents’ summer house. I think of all the birds, hidden somewhere.
I walk bravely through puddles. I kick it up, and my legs are wet. The grass is squishy, and my feet are slippery in the flip-flops.
I pass under the bridge. There are two people there, a boy and a girl. They are standing near each other, but not touching – they’re just friends. Too bad: it’s perfect weather for lovers.
Further on, I see the swing set were I once sat with Irene, and where I once talked to Adnan, and where a million conversations were held. I follow the path up the bridge that crosses the river. The river is rushing underneath me. I think about how just yesterday it must have been flowing along so slowly, almost still.
There is a duck on the bridge. She waddles away as I approach. I laugh.
I go further on, past the pool. I’m walking towards the library. Weather for lovers? And what of me? I have my lovers, my raindrops. I reach out to touch one.
I think, in a past life, I was a wind. The Coreolis Effect was my father, and convection was my mother. I wonder what kind of wind I was. I wonder if I was ever friends with a thunder clap.
Thunder rumbles overhead.
It’s beautiful out here.

I turn back. When I pass under the bridge again, the boy and girl are still there, and still not in love. Oh well, I can pretend.