Rainy Days

I woke up with my hands clutching air. His fingers weren’t intertwined with mine. He wasn’t lying next to me, holding onto me. He wasn’t there. He didn’t exist.

A dream—it was just a dream.

I pressed my eyes shut again. A terrible urge to cry came over me.

It was one of those days…

I glanced at the clock—four AM. Dawn had just descended, and the world was covered in a dreamy kind of haze.  I felt the weather before I saw it, if that’s even possible. I could sense that it was raining outside. I sat up, wide awake, and heard the gentle pitter-patter of the raindrops. The little droplets of water raced down the glass window near my bed. I pushed open the window, letting the cold, wet air enter my room. The smell of wet Earth invaded my nose almost immediately.

There’s something about rainy days.

The world looks different on rainy days. The trees and the leaves look greener, the mud looks darker. The sky looks grey, and empty. The air seems fresher. I reach out my hands, feeling the rain on the tips of my fingers. I press my eyes shut again, and feel myself getting transported to another time, to another place.

The rain falling, falling…I can feel it on my face, on my skin, everywhere…the rain dripping down my wet hair, and my school uniform…it has finally stopped raining, I must go home…he’s standing there, looking at me. Why is he looking at me? Is there something on my face? Does he know how I feel when he looks at me?

I pop my eyes open, interrupting the memory I’d been re-living. It happened ages ago, there’s no point thinking about it. It’ll never happen again, that’s for sure.

I lay on my bed for the next few minutes, trying hard to go back to sleep, to stop thinking, to stop missing him. No, not the boy who had been in my dream. That boy, whoever he was, didn’t exist. I couldn’t even remember his face. No, the boy I was missing was the one in my memory.

Short black, closely cropped hair, standing alert on his head. His beautiful, beautiful brown eyes calling out to me; the reason of my pain, and my happiness.

Rainy days have a way of making you feel sad, and alone. They have the power to remind you of things you’ve long forgotten, to make you think of people you don’t want to think about. Rainy days have the power to make you feel more than you allow yourself to. Maybe it was nostalgia those drops of rain brought on, but I suddenly felt this torturous urge to look at his face, to see him. To look at the eyes I so dearly loved. Not able to restrain myself anymore, I grabbed my phone, and opened my Facebook account. A few taps later, I found myself at his Facebook profile.

The boy smiling up to me was a little less than a stranger, like a remnant of a long-forgotten dream. He was the person I so dearly loved, yet he wasn’t. He was someone else. I couldn’t bear to look at the smile of this stranger for more than a few seconds. That face reminded me of all that I’d lost. It was the proof of the fact that feelings change, people change.

So I didn’t look at the pictures he’d recently posted. No, instead I scrolled down, down, down, and looked the old pictures. Now that was the smile I recognized. That was the person I loved; the person I still love. But much like the boy in my dream, he didn’t exist. At least not anymore. Maybe he hadn’t ever existed. Maybe it was all in my head.

The sky in the picture was grey and dark, much like the sky outside. His short black hair was wet, like his clothes. He was smiling, his eyes wide and happy. I felt my heart clench in my chest. Those were the days I’d felt like myself. Those were the days I’d been truly, completely, happy—content.

And those days were gone, just like the boy in this picture.

In his place lived a stranger, who didn’t talk to me, didn’t make me feel the way he used to. This stranger didn’t care. This stranger was ruthless, and indifferent. His eyes didn’t light up when he saw me.

Rainy days make you feel alone, and unloved. They make you want to immerse yourself in the memories of the days that are long gone. Rainy days make you want to curl up in a ball, and let your pain consume you.

So that’s what I did.

I let the pain consume me.

Inspired by: My Best Friend Snigdha Chopra. Go to her blog, and give her love! http://www.thetaleserlebnisse.wordpress.com

© Copyright Shreya Pandey