Page 16 of As the Rain Falls
“A young girl was under the influence while driving. People should care about this; our authorities should care about this.” Tamara has been going at it for at least ten minutes now. “We are overlooking the things crossing our borders, but our youth is paying the price. Le Port’s youth is paying for our inactions!”
Tamara Lucas is what old, bitter people like to call “a bright young lady.”
I can’t say I disagree.
Truly, I find her exceptionally passionate.She possesses the kind of genius that makes you want to listen; it’s her thing. As a prominent personality in her field—according to my father, a total vulgarization of investigative journalism—the hostess is the kind of woman who cares about everything deeply.
I admire her strength and even her tenacity, but maybe more so from afar, as someone who only relatively cares about everything. We can’t all afford to be Tamara Lucas, after all.
My fingers brush against the silk headband hidden underneath the pillow, and the baby blue bedsheets get stainedwith pink nail polish. Lucia Evans liked to wear it at school, but if I remember correctly, the yellow color didn’t match with the indigo blue of Sainte Madeleine’s uniforms.
I thought I’d give it back. I mean, at least I did at first. Her brother certainly deserves to keep it more than I do. But a month turned into two, now three. Sometimes I forget the headband is in my possession.
And I’m not even trying to be insensitive about it either, like Kayla likes to point out. It just so happens that my memory is not to be trusted. If I stop forcing myself to think about it, the accident never even happened, but yesterday was October 16th. Lucia Evans would’ve been eighteen by now.
I blow out the vanilla-scented candle, watching the sun start to rise on the horizon. The light breaks through the cracks of the half-opened window, and a soft breeze comes in. My white curtains are swinging softly now, almost blocking my view.
“Happy birthday, Lucia.”
I smile softly, sending my prayers to the sky. The loud ringtone reverberates for a second time.It takes me out of a state of reverie, and I blink away the image of a blonde girl with blue eyes covered up in dark blood.
Her dead body is not something I like to remember or even think about in passing. Nobody likes to think about dead bodies; it reminds us too much of our own.
“Stupid fucking phone won’t stop fucking ringing all the time.” I press my thumb against the home button repeatedly, looking to shut it off.
A tapping sound begins, coming from outside.
I pull the curtains and fully open the window, all to angrily stare at the sky high above me. The clouds are charged, gathering over my parents’ house like they know someone like me must be around.
“Shut up!” I gasp with disbelief, finally noticing the water puddles scattered all over our garden. “Shut up!”
Living here? It’s the kind of commitment not a lot of people are ready to make even though they’d like to think otherwise.
Traditionally, Le Port only knows two types of weather: sunny, humid, and hot from September to November, and dark, rainy, and gloomy from December until the following year, around August.
No in-between, take it or leave it.
It seems as if the rainy season, my least favorite season of them all, is coming earlier than expected this year. I get more depressed with the bad weather. It’s like my body becomes prone to melancholy, or something.
That’s not to say I like summer more. It’s just… never what I idealize it to be in my head. Sure, the sunlight is rather tolerable early in the mornings, but by the time the clock hits twelve, the heat gets so bad to the point of making my rosacea flare up.
As a toddler, my mother liked to rush me inside with worried, careful glances just to lock me in our stuffy living room. She forced strawberry popsicles down my throat until I stopped complaining about the feeling of tightness around my cheeks, a burning sensation that throbbed and pulsed.
Our grandmother sent Nathaniel to Le Port around that time.
I don’t remember much of it anymore, but I remember what came after.
He grew out of being a wimpy kid to become a teenager who was taller, stronger, and faster than me. He’d watch me with some kind of anger, pinch the highest spot of my cheeks with his nails, and carve half-moon shapes onto me like he wanted to cut me to pieces and see what was underneath my skin. And if I asked to use the fan, he would turn it on but keep it far out of reach above me.
I was smaller than most kids and underdeveloped looking, and he did that a lot, mocking my size and my weakness, like it was some kind of a joke. But even then I knew I was his favorite person in the world, and he couldn’t get enough of me.Mom made sure I knew that and never forgot it.
He loves you, Cassandra.
Your brother loves you the most.
Those were good days for our family, I guess.
Right before I made a mess out of things.
