Falling Rain

He was lean, his dark burgundy curls falling over his forehead, an amused look in his eyes. I blinked like a startled deer, my hideout discovered.

I frowned slightly at the smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers and looked accusing at the football near his feet. He gave a guilty look and his lips broke into a sheepish grin. I gave a sterner look and he returned it with an obstinate toss of his egoistic head. I thought he was going to rebel, but then he threw the cigarette away.

I was lying under the peepal tree in the field near our school. I was blissed out, observing the beautifully shaped leaves and their shadows, flicking my head occasionally to duck a falling fruit (or some unwanted blessings from the tree’s residents). This was my secret hideout. A place with no people. A place for me to bask in solitude. Out of nowhere, he came, breaking into my silence.

"You have to lie here?", he asked.

I nodded.

"Let’s go sit on the tree boughs.", he suggested.

"There are red ants there. And some are particularly nasty.", I replied.

"Damn.", he said.

Kicking his football, he started walking near the shade of the tree. I thought he’d stay for a short while and go away. But he kept shuffling the ball nearer and sat down near my head. I looked into his dark eyes from that position, my eyebrows arched in query, but then I felt a wave overwhelm something within me. Love.

I looked away, placing an arm over my forehead to hide my eyes. The sky was overcast and so were my eyes. Blinking hard I quelled the rising storm inside me.

"I didn’t know I could be so comfortable and quiet with someone.", his voice touched my ears in whispers. I love your voice, I say but my mouth is silent.

I smirked, "Hard for you, right chatterbox?"

He looked down warmly.

Removing my arm with one hand, he looked into my eyes. I felt my arm go limp where he touched.

But it was enough.

I gently removed my arm from his grip and placed it on my stomach looking skyward. I didn’t know how to react. Something fierce twisted inside me.

He started playing with my hair.

Exasperated, I got up, Oh for God’s sake—I started to say but my head got pulled back and I fell on his chest. He let go of my hair and I sat upright, shocked.

"Sorry.", he said and started massaging my head.

"What do you want?" I asked breathlessly.

"Talk to me.", he whispered in my ear.

"Why?" I countered, getting a little impatient.

"Your silence suffocates me at times.", and he laid his head on my shoulder, drawing his hands over mine, holding them delicately, as if not to break me.

A line of goosebumps rose on my neck, while I gulped down the sudden fluttering near my chest.

"When have you started feeling?" I ask quietly, belying my quivering inside. I remembered his words,

 I didn’t feel anything, I’m numb.

"I don’t know", he replied, "I don’t know what happened to me. Except that that I’ve to keep talking to you. Or else."

Or else. His breath shifted through my hair as I closed my eyes. I wanted to freeze this moment, to an infinitesimally long eternity. I wanted to talk to him forever, to know that he was mine and that nothing would ever separate us from this embrace.

Rain was falling. And it was washing away every pain that I ever felt.

"It’s raining, let’s go somewhere else", he suggested.

"Let’s stay.", I replied.

And so we sat in that warm bearlike embrace, getting wet subtly and looking at the falling rain.