I didn't move.
At eighteen, you are still porous. You haven't yet built the calluses of adulthood. When the rain hits your skin at that age, it doesn't just get you wet; it gets into you. It becomes a character in your story. It was the rain that ruined your first road trip. It was the rain that soaked through your graduation gown, making the cheap polyester stick to your arms like a second skin. It was the rain that fell the night you said goodbye to your best friend, knowing you would never really be kids again.
"Are you waiting for a bus?" she shouted over the roar. Rain 18
"That's the best reason I've ever heard," she said.
We sat there for an hour. We didn't exchange numbers. We didn't kiss. We just watched the water rise. She told me she was moving to Portland in the morning. I told her I was staying here, even though I didn't know where "here" was. When the rain finally slowed to a whisper, she stood up, brushed off her wet jeans, and walked away without saying goodbye. I didn't move
The rain remembers. Even if you don't.
I turned off my computer. I walked outside. I sat on the curb in front of my building—a different curb, in a different city, in a different life. A neighbor yelled, "Hey, you're going to get wet!" When the rain hits your skin at that
The rain at 18 gives you permission to be dramatic. To sit on a wet curb for an hour. To let a stranger sit next to you. To laugh without knowing why. I am writing this from a dry apartment. I am 28 now. I have ambition (too much, actually). I have a job that pays the bills and a plant that is somehow still alive. I have calluses.