ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

1. 𝙈𝙐𝙎𝙏𝘼𝙉𝙂 𝘽𝘼𝘽𝙔

001, 𝙈𝙐𝙎𝙏𝘼𝙉𝙂 𝘽𝘼𝘽𝙔

noted: I've gone back and edited the ch, which is why there aren't any comments LMAO.

.⋆𐙚 🍒

THE RAIN HAD STARTED BEFORE I'D EVEN WOKEN UP.

Dark storm clouds swirled outside like angry bruises, blooming across the sky in slow, deliberate motions. They hung low over the rooftops, thick and heavy, as though they were too burdened to keep floating. The rain wasn't aggressive. It didn't scream or crash or demand attention—it simply was, falling with a soft, persistent rhythm.

I stayed in bed, tucked beneath the large quilt my elderly neighbour, Mrs. Arslan, had made for me when I was younger. It smelled faintly of freshly picked cherries like the ones that grew in her backyard, and vanilla and laundry detergent, and maybe something a little older—years of forgotten memories. 

The room around me felt suspended in time. The walls were painted a pale shade of bone-white, but in this light, they looked almost blue. My ceiling fan spun lazily overhead, clicking every few rotations—a sound that once unsettled me when I moved in. I used to imagine it was a quiet warning, telling me to shift out of the way before it broke loose and came crashing down on top of me.

I'd just woken up from a dream. The same one that comes most nights—on the rare occasions I actually dream at all. I still can't figure out what it means. But it feels less like a dream and more like a memory that's gone soft around the edges.

The sky is always dark, full of stars that all blur together. The air warm and heavy, a summer breeze brushing over my sticky skin after being stuck for too long in a room full of people I don't care about, at a party I never wanted to be at. I'm lying on what must be a rooftop, and there's someone beside me. A guy. About my age. I can't make out his face. I don't remember what he's saying—only that I liked the sound of his voice, that it made me feel safe in a way I couldn't explain.

But I remember his eyes.

That clear blue with speckles of green, like stained sea glass—so bright, yet carrying a kind of quiet anger.

That's all I ever remember before I wake up.

And then it's just a dream. One I've been having for a little over a year now.

I stare at the ceiling for a while, eyes open but unfocused, tracing invisible patterns with my gaze as the shadows moved across the plaster. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a car drive past faster than it should have been going in this weather—tires slicing through puddles, water spraying out behind it. Then silence again. Just the rain, the fan, my breath.

It was a quiet sort of lonely. You know, the one you don't really feel until you notice how loud your heartbeat sounds in your ears.

The window beside my bed was fogged at the corners, but I could still see the street below. A sidewalk slick with rain, a row of parked cars that hadn't moved in hours. As the sky darkened signaling the sun's departure from this side of the earth, a nearby buildings pot lights had flickered on.

For as long as I had lived in Seattle, which wasn't very long at all, it had always been this way. Drenched in grey. A city that teaches you how to exist in a stillness that feels suffocating. How to find softness in cold things. And everytime I ask myself why I chose to move here, I remember the reason. 

It's basically as far as I can get from the women I call my mother without leaving the country. 

September, I had learned, was a drier month in comparison to the rest of the year. The blistering summer heat clawed to keep its place, even as the day began to cool and the wind carried the very last of the warm salty breeze.