Kiss The Rain

Jenna could not remember their first meeting very well. Whether it happened along the corridors, bumping against each other, things flying everywhere; or outside, in the rain, where he offered his umbrella to her—she cannot properly say. But what she does remember clearly was the color of his eyes. Deep blue, like the ocean, streaked with brighter jags of blue, like lightning in the middle of a storm. She remembered being caught in them, and not being able to look away. What she remembered after that seemed vague; a blur. She tried to remember if he said anything to her. Yes. He did. She remembered how his lips curved, and how his tongue flicked subtly as he said, “You watch yourself now.” The thought of his soft baritone caused her head to buzz and spin uncontrollably. She wondered if she’ll see him again, wondered if he’ll recognize her, or if he’ll notice her at all. Her thoughts went back to his eyes. They glowed as though amused back then. Amused at her? Her stomach tightened. Did he think of her as the amusing type? Does he like the amusing type? Perhaps he does, the way his eyes glowed; a midnight sky, split by jags of lightning. She shivered happily at the thought.

“Jen!”

She blinked, wondering for a moment where she was. School. Library. Yes. What was she doing here? Her eyes traveled to the table before her. A huge piece of white paper was sprawled along the table’s entire area. A barely-started drawing dominated one corner. Poster. Concert. Right.

“You were spacing out again…” the voice that called her said impatiently. Jenna looked across the table. Domaine, with his sharp, brown eyes and thin lips, regarded her with distaste. It was very difficult to please Domaine, especially when it came to detail-work. The color had to be ecru not cream, scarlet not red, azure not blue. He amused her though, with his jokes and tall tales, so she managed to tolerate him. Too bad he was gay, Jenna thought. She might have considered asking him out. She looked away, trying to conceal the smile that threatened to crack her face.

“Something funny?” Domaine, president of the decoration committee, asked, his perfect eyebrows arched. Apparently, Jenna’s done a poor job in hiding her smile.

“No, sir,” she said with a straight face. Picking up a Sharpie, she proceeded with her assignment. Across the table, Domaine was meticulously cutting out the tickets printed on semi-hard paper. He was humming to a song Jenna couldn’t identify. It was actually Come Together, by The Beatles.

The day was ending. Jenna couldn’t be happier to leave Domaine with his superior attitude. Sighing, she was about to reach the library’s first floor exit when she heard a tumultuous uproar coming from outside. Rain. Dread crept up her chest. She made her way to the closest window and saw that, indeed, it was raining outside.

She didn’t have an umbrella. Again.

Why was it that when people don’t have umbrellas, it almost always rained. She sighed. Looking along the corridor, she found the place empty. It was already darkening outside, too. She needed to make it home before dark. Her parents were away and she had two younger siblings waiting for her. Twins. And they always did things together. Screaming, wailing, bawling, throwing things; together.

She was about to call a friend of hers and beg to be fetched when she heard subtle footfalls behind her. She froze. They sounded careful, deliberate, like a stalker’s. Her hand rested itself on her throat, wondering if the assailant had a garrote wire, and if he would strangle her with it. She shook her head. You’re being ridiculous, she told herself. This was a close-campus school. Only school-people went in and out of it. Gathering up whatever miniscule courage she had, she turned around.

It was him.

He was still about fifty yards away but she knew it was him. Blue. That was the color of the shirt he was wearing. Not a plain, pastel blue, but like a painting of the color blue. Bright and dark shades collided with each other in swirls, dips and splashes, like a violent storm. It looked batik, but at the same time, it didn’t. It hugged his torso slightly, just enough for her to notice the tone of his chest and abdomen. His arms, swaying slightly on either side of him as he moved towards the exit, were lean. Wristlets decorated both of his wrists, and in ample quantity. Animal bones and colorful stones clicked and clacked softly as he moved. In the silence of the corridor, they sounded like drumbeats in a hanging. Jenna’s hand was over her throat again.

He was close. Real close. Her back found the wall, and she held her breath. A light breeze from inside the building billowed, sending his scent up her nose. Rain. He smelled, not unpleasantly, like rain. She knew the smell didn’t come from the actual rain itself, but from him. From his very pores. A warm shudder passed through her as she pondered this.

As he neared the mouth of the exit, he slowed, and stopped completely at the very edge. Jenna, hugging the wall, was a mere two feet to his right.

His hair, long and short at the same time, billowed slightly from the breeze that was blowing everywhere. With a thin-fingered hand, he brushed the stray strands of his fringe away from his face. The lines of his cheekbones were observable now that he was close enough. His jaw bordered between powerful and modest. And his lips curved in a neutral expression. His eyebrows, not too thick, even for a boy, rested easily over his eyes (Jenna thought there was something familiar about those eyebrows). He looked ahead, unimpressed by the prospect of rain.

Then he looked at her.

It was a quick and deliberate turning of his neck, but in Jenna’s eyes, it was a slow, sensual movement involving the wild tossing of his hair, the glinting of his eyes, and the slight spray of rain. She bit her lip.

“If you don’t want to get wet,” he said in the soft baritone of his voice. “Stay close.” The barrage of the rain didn’t muffle his words. Jenna heard them clearly, as though the noise outside didn’t exist.
It took her a moment to grasp that he was inviting her to walk with him. Did he have an umbrella? As though zapped by an electric current, she straightened up and inched herself closer to him. Their elbows almost touched.

She noticed that he wasn’t as tall as she’d originally imagined him to be. She was almost as tall as he was. And she knew she was short. She shrugged. Oh, well.

Jenna waited for him to spread his concealed umbrella, but he made no movement to indicate such. Instead, he repeated to her, “Stay close.” and stepped out.

His movement startled her. And what happened next startled her even more. The moment he stepped out of the building and into the torrent, the rain stopped. As abruptly as a showerhead being turned off. If she had been more observant, which, in her slightly muddled state, she wasn’t, she would have noticed that the rain had stopped at precisely the moment the tip of his shoe left the comfort of the building’s shade.

Several paces out of the library, he looked back and gave her a look: What are you doing? Zapped again by an electric charge, she rushed out into the clear, non-rainy outdoors, to his side.

He didn’t offer an explanation. She couldn’t find the nerve to ask him for one. Her head was whirring with the realization that she was walking with this guy. She failed to notice that he didn’t make a single splash, even though he walked straight into a deep puddle. Jenna also failed to notice that neither did she. They walked as far as the school’s front gate, where a roof was, and where other people were waiting for rides. They, the other people, seemed oblivious to the fact that it had stopped raining. They spoke loudly to each other, as though the torrential downpour of the rain still rang in their ears. And for those waiting outside the gate’s roof, they had their umbrellas out, protecting themselves from the nonexistent rain.

They now stood among a group of sodden students and teachers, each trying to squeeze further into the cramped space just to stay away from the rain. Jenna found it amazing how many were still here despite the night approaching. The rain had, the moment they were under a roof, continued to pour. She looked at his companion. He was staring straight ahead, as though expecting something. Probably his ride, she assumed.

“I didn’t catch your name,” she found herself saying. Her voice came out small, drowned by the noise of the rain. She didn’t mind, she’d prefer he hadn’t heard her anyway.

“Kaleb,” he replied, his face turned to look at her. His voice came out clearly, as though the rain didn’t have power over it. Or maybe it was the rain itself that answered her.

She allowed the short syllables to fill her head, to engrave the name in the back of her skull. She blinked. His hand was offered to her for a handshake.

“Oh,” she said, tentatively grasping his hand. She realized her palms were sweaty. “Oh, and I’m—”

“Jenna,” he interrupted her with a smile. “I know. My brother’s told me a lot about you.”

Her eyelids fluttered in bewilderment.

“Your brother?” she asked.

Kaleb tilted his head, confused. “Yeah,” he said. “Domaine. He never mentioned me?”

The reply hit her like a truck. Domaine? She couldn’t help herself from blurting out the letters she swore never to say out loud:

“Oh-Em-Gee! Domaine?”

She stared up at Kaleb, trying to see if he was pulling her leg. He wasn’t. His blue eyes regarded her in all honesty.

“Does it sound that incredible?” Kaleb asked, his voice sounding a bit offended.

“N-no!” Jenna said quickly. “I just didn’t know you two were related. Much less know each other.”

“You’re forgiven,” he said, a small smile crossing his face. He sounded amused now. “Not a lot of people do. It’s just that you reacted so strongly about it.”

Jenna shook her head.

“Sorry, it’s just that,” she hesitated. “Just that…”

“You don’t like him that much, do you?” Kaleb supplied. He looked offended as he said this.

“Working with him,” Jenna confessed. “It’s…well, a nightmare.”

“That’s strange,” Kaleb said thoughtfully. “He told me you amuse him. And when someone amuses Domaine, it means he likes that person very much.”

A second truck hit her, followed by the first truck, backing up. She reeled and if it wasn’t for the support provided by the condensation of people behind and around her, she would have collapsed.

“He likes me?” she sputtered. “But I thought he was—”

“Gay?” Kaleb supplied again. He sounded amused and irritated at the same time. “Oh, you’ll be surprised how straight he is once you get to really know him. In fact, he requested for me to make sure you make it to your ride without getting wet. Isn’t that gentlemanly of him?” He was half-teasing in his last statement.

Unsure if she could hold her footing for much longer, she grabbed onto Kaleb’s shoulder for support. Hard muscle met her fingers. The familiar shudder passed through her again. She looked up at him, his eyes regarding her carefully. And she laughed at the irony of it all.

“Something funny?” Kaleb asked. At that moment, he sounded exactly like Domaine.

“I was thinking,” she said. “If he likes me like you said, how come Domaine doesn’t do it himself? Ensure I get home dry, I mean?”

Kaleb shrugged.

“He can’t do what I can,” he replied simply.

“Which is?” she asked.

“Talk to the rain.”

It was one of Domaine’s tall tales all over again.
She remembered him telling her a story of a young boy singing ‘Rain, rain, go away’ in the middle of a typhoon. When he had finished, the storm had completely and abruptly stopped, like water does when the faucet is shut. Domaine swore to her it was a true story, and had, in fact, happened on numerous occasions, its just that people were too oblivious to actually notice.

“Talk to the rain?” Jenna said, trying very hard not to sound incredulous.

“Yep,” Kaleb nodded, looking away now. Something seemed to have caught his attention.

Jenna shook her head.
“Wait, okay,” she said, “So what can Domaine do, then?”
She was supposed to be humoring him. But he had an answer:

“Talk to light,” Kaleb said.

She looked up at him, wanting an explanation, but he was already guiding her through the crowd, hand tightly around her wrist. When they broke through the condensed people, they were outside the roof, and it had stopped raining again.
A car was parked and waiting. Jenna’s older brother, come to pick her up. He always drove by to pick her up, even though they don’t live under the same roof anymore.

Before Kaleb opened the car door for her, he told her:

“All credit goes to Domaine,” in a teasing and also serious tone. “Give him a chance.”

She stared at him, wondering if he was serious. Date Domaine? The walls in Jenna’s world began to collapse. How about Kaleb? He was what she wanted. But apparently, all the right signals thus far were simply transmitted through him from Domaine. And that it was Domaine who fancied her.

She was sitting in the car’s front passenger seat now, still looking up at Kaleb’s oceanic eyes. She wanted to say ‘All right’ but if she did, then that would ultimately ruin her chance with Kaleb. They, the brothers were obviously really close. If she dated Domaine, then out of respect, Kaleb would back away. If she declined, there was a high risk of Kaleb being offended, which he seemed to easily be whenever it was about his brother.

Was it all of for nothing? Her fantasies of him, crushed by the existence of his effeminate brother? This was infuriating. She couldn’t possibly win this. She ought to just give them both up.

Her hand wrapped around the door handle, about to shut the door on Kaleb’s face when the boy reached out, stroked her face, blue eyes glistening, and said:

“For me?”