Best Thing In Town

I was unusually early to school. I waited around in front of my locker. Looking like I was busy. Someone was talking to me. Or I think they were. I wasn’t listening to what they were saying anyway. Something about Chemistry class. Irrelevant to me. My mind was somewhere else.

I bustled through the rest of the day just like this. Incomplete sentences racing through my head. There were moments where I would break out of the scramble and become magnificently drowsy. All the thoughts were swept away and I started dreaming. Absently dreaming.

The bell rang. The day was over. I skipped my trip to my locker--straight to the parking lot.

The sky hung low, patiently delaying a downpour. The air was still, and I tiptoed slowly through it; cautiously weary of causing a disturbance. Everyone around me moved quickly, hurriedly. They did not tiptoe.

No one was worried about their surroundings, like I was. No one held on so tightly to fear, like I did. No one was as afraid as I was.

I dropped my books before I got them in the car. I kneeled to pick them up. The subtle wind started to blow away my papers. I had to rush to retrieve them. I had all my belongings in my hands eventually. Before I got back to my feet, I looked across the lot.

The world stopped around him. It stopped for him. He leaned against a tree smoking a cigarette. The smoke traveled and became the sky. His back was toward me. I breathed in once and held it there. One more breath, and it would rain.

He turned toward me. His eyes saw me. I exhaled. And the first raindrop fell.