Page 42 of Rainstorm

For balm.

For healing.

“Someday you will be happy again,” I hear her saying. I almost laugh at the idea of happiness. “Let’s get outta here and breathe some fresh air. God knows we both need it.”

“I can’t, Ariel, I can’t.”

“You can and you will,” she insists, and somehow it’s as if she’s talking about someone else, because I can’t even move from the floor.

But her strength pulls me together.

Gripping the broken pieces of my being and reforming them.

The girl with the rainbow colored hair becomes my spine.

My bearer.

Come on, girl, you cannot fall any lower. You’ve hit rock bottom, the only way now is up.

Although in truth I still feel the storm’s eye has not yet touched ground. That moment will only come when I know the whole truth. How else can I accept what has happened?

I need to know why. I need answers.

So, at which stage of the fight should I be now?

There’s no doubt the denial stage is coming to end with the ugly truth hitting me harder with every minute that passes.

And so it is almost with pleasure that I welcome the anger stage, it has to be better than the deep sadness in which I have been wallowing.

Anger I can work with.

So, I force myself to pull my shit together.

I wash away the flood of tears from my face.

And after one of Ariel’s magic calming teas, I’m finally ready to go out. At least as ready as I can be at this moment in my life. But it’s a step in the right direction.

“I could never wear a dress like that...” I confess, looking at the outfit my friend is wearing. Not only because of the vibrant print and the magenta belt that she has combined, but because it’s showing way too much cleavage.

“Hey, it’s not my fault most of the female population doesn’t happen to have a decent pair of tits to showcase when the opportunity arises, is it?”

How do you answer that without laughing?

Just being around Ariel makes me feel better. She’s always so happy and spontaneous, with a positive attitude that I frankly envy. She’s an optimist, someone who always sees the glass half full.

She’s a dreamer, a believer.

And she is becoming my rainbow in this fucking storm.

“Are we calling an Über?” I ask innocently, but when she looks at me aghast, I immediately regret opening my big mouth.

“Of course not,” she snaps back. “The bar is just a couple of blocks from here in the Gaslamp Quarter, so if we’re going to spend twenty dollars, it’s going to be on alcohol, my young grasshopper.”

Without further delay, we leave her apartment, Ariel chatting away nonstop about everything and anything, while I struggle to keep up as she heads along the sidewalk in the direction of the bar.

“Are we almost there?” I ask out of breath, as the couple of blocks become at least ten. I’m grateful I’m wearing flats, otherwise I’d be sitting and crying on the sidewalk by now, complaining about my feet hurting.

“You’re such a baby! Come on, the bar is just on the corner,” she insists. Luckily this time she’s telling the truth.

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