Sunspots and Raindrops

Brendon's Point of View

Standing there in Sonny’s backyard, I knew that there was a storm blowing in from the north and that at any moment, it might start raining. But I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but the blazing pain in her eyes. There wasn’t much else in my mind other than destroying anyone or anything that would make such a bright and beautiful face look so defeated.

I enveloped her in a hug before she knew I was there and I found solace in the fact that she hugged me back instead of being repulsed or shocked or scared or angry. Then, I felt her shudder and the twist in my gut told me that she was crying.

I had to tighten my arms around her to keep from losing it. Not because she was crying on me (okay, I guess that’s exactly why), but because something had made her cry. I couldn’t begin to bring myself to understand why anyone would do this to her.

I realized then that I wanted to take care of her. I wanted to be the one that was there for her.

I unraveled my arms from around her. I felt her fists close around the sweatshirt of my lower back and my insides jolted and swelled. When I finally got her far enough away from me to look her in the eye, I put my hands on her face and held it upward, keeping my eyes on hers.

There were tears brimming them.

“Are you okay?” I asked her again. I wanted her to be honest with me, but I told myself to understand if she didn’t want to talk about it. But I also told myself that she had been lying earlier.

“I’ve been better.” She replied with a sniff. She tried to look away from me but I couldn’t take my eyes from her. She was beautiful despite the tears.

And just like that, the rain started to pour.

I didn’t want her to be alone like this, so thinking on my feet, I took her hand and began to lead her out of her yard. “Come on.” I say, coaxing her as I had apparently just taken her rather off guard.

We got to my house and I was very thankful that my mom had turned the heat up a little before leaving for work. The rain outside was especially chilly and the warmth felt good.

My shoes sloshed so I kicked them off and then shed my sweatshirt, dropping it on the floor by my shoes. I was about to take my t-shirt off when I turned and looked back at Sonny.

She was standing in the foyer. Proud as she was, her arms were relaxed by her sides, but her hands were in tight fists, indicating that she was trying to keep from shivering.

I quickly dropped my hands from the hem of my shirt. The last thing I wanted was for her to feel uncomfortable. But I didn’t know what would make things awkward for her and what wouldn’t.

“Oh…uh…you don’t have to stay in those wet clothes,” I say, scratching the back of my neck. I was really trying not to be creepy. “You can borrow some sweats and a sweatshirt of mine and I can put your stuff in the dryer.”

The weight was lifted off of my shoulders when she smiled at me. But she was still sniffling a little and there were still tears lining her eyes. Her smile made me smile and I found myself just looking at her.

“Okay, do you have a…um…” she was looking around and I was just standing there, smiling at her like a fucking idiot.

“Oh, fuck, yeah,” I hit myself in the face and swore inwardly. “Right around the corner there’s a bathroom. Go right ahead. I’ll bring you some dry clothes.” And before I could embarrass myself further, I slipped down the hall in my wet socks toward the laundry room.

I tore all of my wet clothing off before hurrying back through my house in nothing by my boxers to my room. I pulled on some sweats and an old black t-shirt before grabbing my most comfortable pair of grey sweats and favorite Fall Out Boy hoodie for Sonny.

I debated taking her some socks but then decided against it. My socks were pretty disgusting and that was the last thing I wanted.

I walked back downstairs and to the bathroom. The door was shut and I knew it’d be locked. Something twinged in me when I realized that Sonny was standing on the other side of that door practically naked. It wasn’t anything disgusting that came to mind or anything that was typical of a boy my age. It was something like awe that she would trust me enough to put herself in this situation.

She was so different.

I knocked on the door and waited. I heard the lock turn (I knew it) and then the door opened just a crack. I turned my face and eyes away and held the clothes out with just one hand.

“I’m one hundred percent sure these will fit you. In fact, they’ll probably be a little big on you because I am also one hundred percent sure that I am bigger than you.” I suppressed a laugh that started off as something else.

Sonny took the clothes. “Thank you, Brendon.” And then she shut the door.

I walked down the hall and leaned against the wall, waiting for her to bring out her wet clothes. It didn’t take her long to get changed and when she came out of the bathroom, I almost told her ‘told you so’. She was swimming in the clothes I’d leant her.

She handed me her wet clothes and I hurried to the dryer to get rid of them and start the machine.

Then, I took her hand again and lead her to my room. “Come on.” I had to say again. She was not as quick on the uptake as she usually was. And this bothered me too.

When we got to my room, I let go of her hand and looked around for something to offer her. I knew she wanted to be distracted but I couldn’t decide what she would be interested in. I had cleaned my room so it’d be easier to find something to do if we ended up here. And low and behold, it was done in vain.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sonny shiver. Once again, she tried to play it off as nothing. She hated being a hassle, but I didn’t care one bit.

I ripped the blanket off of my bed and held it up, one corner in each hand. She looked at me cautiously and I had to keep from rolling my eyes, but I liked that she was beginning the act like her normal self around me. “It’s clean, I promise.”

Her mouth twitched upward in a weary smile as she stepped closer to me. I wrapped the blanket around her like I was hugging her from behind and then, before she could do anything, I fastened my arms around her and picked her up, leaning her against the wall of my room on my bed.

I ran and got my laptop and turned out the lights. Then, I seated myself next to her on the bed and placed the laptop on both of our laps. I didn’t want to feel like I was crowding her. But I couldn’t help but want to be close to her, so I tried my damnedest to be.

“What do you feel like watching?” I opened the disc drive.

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Of course she would chose How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days.

Wasn’t it the tenth day we’d known each other?

We were only about thirty minutes into the film when Sonny’s eyes started welling up again. I noticed, but didn’t want to ask anything if she didn’t want to explain anything.

But when the tears just kept coming, I couldn’t stop myself.

“Sonny?” I asked, leaning forward so that I could meet her eyes. “Sundance, what’s wrong?”

She looked up at me and all of my hope for the evening shattered. She looked even more downtrodden than she had in her bedroom and her backyard combined. I was doing a piss-poor job of cheering her up.

“Brendon, my dad’s dead.”

Someone hit the pause button in that moment. Sonny stopped talking, stopped moving, stopping everything and only looked at me. I wondered what my expression even was. I couldn’t think straight because I was just too stunned.

So, instead of thinking and instead of talking, I hugged her. Because I needed her to know that I heard her. And I needed her to know that I cared.

I didn’t know if her starting to cry harder into my shirt was a good thing or a bad thing. So I didn’t judge it.

I ran my fingers through her hair. It was as soft as always and it smelled like coconut shampoo. I found it intoxicating. “I’m so sorry, Sonny Mae.” I felt like I needed to say more. A confession of this magnitude deserves some sort of recognition of some kind. But even though my mouth was opening and closing, no words came. I was silent.

She pulled away from me and looked me in the eye. “You don’t have to say any more, Bren.” I loved when she called me that, I thought suddenly. I ran my thumb under one of her eyes, catching a stray tear. “I’m sorry I dropped this bombshell on you.”

I hugged her again without thinking. She was so stupid…and selfless…and caring…and perfect.

“You have no room to be sorry.” I say firmly.

She sniffled when I said this and I quickly grabbed the box of Kleenex from my bedside table and gave a tissue to her. She held it to her mouth and I knew she was trying not to cry in front of me.

But I realized that I wanted her to cry. I wanted her to scream and punch me in the shoulder and get everything—that I now understood she’d been bottling up since moving here—out in the open.

And I was determined to get her to lean on me. I knew for a fact that keeping anything like this contained for too long was unhealthy.

So, I got comfy on my bed and patted the spot on the mattress next to me invitingly. Sonny only stared at it for a few moments and then scooted toward me, curling her legs to her chest and wiping her eyes and nose with the Kleenex I’d given her.

I pulled her from her knees and to my side, letting her rest with her head against my chest.

After only a few seconds, she stopped fidgeting with her watering eyes and let her hand drop so that it lay just over my diaphragm. I had to tell myself to breath normally.

I willed my heart to beat steadily.

Then, Sonny’s breathing rate relaxed and she took a deep breath. “It’ll be one year ago next March…” I stared up at my ceiling as I waited for her to continue. “My dad and my mom had been arguing and my dad got really mad and stormed out of the house. He had been gone for a while before the cops showed up. My dad was never much of drinker…but something drove him to go to the bar that night. And that’s why he…” she choked up and stopped. I wound my arm around her and squeezed her closer to me.

We fit together like puzzle pieces.

She inhaled slowly. “He didn’t see trucker in his blind spot and pulled into the passing lane. His car rolled six times…”

And that’s when I noticed her breathing rate had gone up. She was grasping my shirt in a tight fist and I knew she was reliving the memories. All of the nightmares that had probably been torturing her since her father’s death were flooding back to her and she was getting overwhelmed. She was going into hysterics.

Had this been the first time she’d ever even talked about this?

I rolled onto my side, causing her to roll onto her back. Tears were rolling from the corners of her eyes and disappearing into her hair. The muscles in her neck were taut and she was forcing every possible sound that crawled up her windpipe back down.

She was too proud for her own good.

I put my hands on either side of her face again. “Sonny,” I said, trying to get her to look at me, but she continued to stare upward. “Look at me, Sonny.” She did, but her gaze looked distant. She wasn’t with me. “Sonny, it’s going to be okay. Everything is okay.”

She was coming back slowly. “How is everything going to be okay, Brendon?” she asks cynically.

“It just will be.” I didn’t know what else to say to her. “I just know it will be.”

She inhaled a deep, shaky breath. “How do you know?”

“Because…” I scrambled through my brain for any reason and could only come up with one. One that had always been there. “Because I’m going to make sure of it.”

That seemed to grab her attention. Her deep and unbalanced breathing stopped, her sobs ceased, and everything in my bedroom seemed absolutely still.

“Really?” she asked, seemingly disbelieving.

“I promise.”

She blinked at me and then she smiled. And that one smile was enough for me for that evening.

“Brendon, I’m exhausted.” She says and I believed her. Her voice had diminished down to a horse whisper. “Can I just stay here?”

I was shocked that she would even consider that.

“Of course. Let me go lock my door so my mom doesn’t walk in and get the wrong idea.” I tried to be away from her for as little time as possible.

And when I was back on the bed with her, she cuddled into my side as far as she could and sighed. “Thank you, Bren.” She murmured, her fatigue grasping her voice.

“For what?” But there was no answer. When I looked at her, her eyes were closed. Her breathing had evened out and she had relaxed completely.

I put my head back on my pillow as I put my arms around her. Her arms around me squeezed and I heard her hum my name.

That girl had a way of slipping into my dreams when she talked…