Girl in Pieces

The rain happens very early, while I’m riding my bicycle to Riley’s to wake him up for work. It was humid all night and I slept with the fan right against my body, but it didn’t do any good. I rinsed off in cold water in the tub, but my clothes stuck to me the instant I got outside.

About halfway to his house, it’s as though someone drew a dark curtain across the sky and suddenly, the fattest rain I’ve ever seen or felt starts pouring down. It’s like a thousand faucets have gone off in the sky at once. The street fills up instantly and cars driving by skitter and splash even more water all over me. I almost crash when someone hits a puddle and the water slashes across my face. The rain is warm and powerful.

I’m soaking when I get to his house. I run up on the porch, kick off my boots. I call out through the door, but there’s no answer. I don’t want to get his floor wet, but then I think, What’s he going to care, anyway? So I run through his house straight to the bathroom. The only towels are on the floor. I start mopping myself off, shaking water from my hair.

Riley appears in the doorway, his hair tousled. He’s shirtless, which makes me blush. “Well, look what the cat dragged in. This your first monsoon?”

“What?” Now I’m shivering, my overalls heavy with water and my shirt sticking to my body.

“It’s practically the best thing about Tucson. Monsoons. Absolutely epic rainstorms. They can shut down parts of the city in minutes, flood the roads. Let me go take a look.”

He comes back, whistling. “That’s a pretty bad one. We can’t head out in this. We’ll have to wait it out. You better take off those wet clothes.”

I look at him. “Excuse me?” His eyes are gleaming.

“You’re a real wet cat, Charlie. You can’t stay in those clothes. I don’t have a washer and a dryer. I do that stuff at Julie’s apartment. You’ll just have to be naked.” He laughs.

I wrap the towel around myself.

“I’m just joking. Hold on.”

My teeth are chattering. I can hear the rain beating against the roof, the sides of the house.

Riley comes back with a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. “Here,” he says, handing them to me. “Left over from a houseguest.”

Houseguest. When? Who? I look down at the clothes. Riley closes the door. I peel off my wet clothes and hang them carefully on the shower curtain. It feels weird to be in different clothes. The jeans are a little big around the waist. I have to roll them down at the top and then roll up the legs. He didn’t bring me any socks, so I have to walk barefoot.

I feel bare in the short-sleeved T-shirt. And cold. I grab another towel and wrap it around myself.

The front door is open. Riley is sitting on the porch cross-legged, smoking. I sit next to him.

“I love this weather,” he murmurs. “I love rain.”

I look out at the blustery sheets of water. Everything seems to have a gray-brown, shimmery gauze over it. “I don’t,” I say. “I don’t like it at all. I don’t like snow that much, either.”

“You and Mother Nature don’t get along, huh?”

I think of the times Evan and Dump and I got stuck out in the rain, when we couldn’t find a place to go. How when you’re standing in the rain, pressed together, getting wetter and wetter, knowing that the wetness will grow a fungus in your dirty, wet socks, that you’ll probably get sick for days, it feels like you’ll never be dry again.

“I lived outside for a while,” I say, surprising myself. “Before I came here. It isn’t fun when it rains and you have nowhere to go to get dry.”

I can feel Riley’s eyes on me. He’s quiet for a while and then he says, “I’m sorry to hear that, Charlie. That’s no good. That’s no good at all.”

“It wasn’t.” I can feel a ball rising in my throat. I pinch my thigh so I don’t start crying. I feel kind of good for telling someone, for telling him. Out of everyone I’ve met so far here, I feel like he’d understand fucking up and being lost.

He puts out his cigarette in the ashtray and reaches over, touching my hand. “You’re still cold.” He rubs my skin with his fingers and then stands up, holding out his hand.

“Let’s get you back inside. That blanket on the couch? It’s the best, trust me. You go wrap up in that and I’ll make some tea.”

He smiles. “Okay?”

I look at his hand for a moment before I take it. “Okay.”