Boiling water splashed on my hand. I screamed, but it's fine, because no one was around. No one except the dogs--Maggie ran up to me and patted her paws all over my shirt, leaving little claw divots.
I ran my hand under water. Cold water, running over the side of my thumb as if it had somewhere to be. I thought about singing Ariana Grande. I had gotten "How I Look On You" in my head, and then I started singing "in my head" and thinking about how Marcy looks, standing next to Andrias.
Then I tried to do my homework. Chemistry homework, over things I learned before. Time is a river and stoichiometry is stuck at the source. I can't paddle strong enough to catch up with it. Even though me and Adedoyin are the 3rd strongest canoe team at OEC, I don't think we could paddle that far back.
The thing is, I could still feel the water burning on my skin. It was as I started typing: like a bandaid that had been left on for too long, my skin tugged every time I moved my thumb. It was raised slightly, bright red and it felt like a blinking stoplight.
It hurt to play piano, too. I stopped that after a while.
That was the first of three encounters with water. The second was on the road. Anchored on Newton Road, I could see the sky, darker than anything. There were no shelf clouds, just a dark blue mass looming over the horizon. I prayed I wouldn't drive into it.
But I did. They say when it rains it pours, and pour it did.
Water rushed in on the streets. I had the windshield wipers going as fast as they could, but I couldn't see. Three car lengths in front of me, headlights disappeared into an endless grey fog. I slowed my speed, but it didn't matter: my wheels lifted off the ground and skidded. Spinning but not doing anything. The only thing pushing me forward was a fear of stopping.
I hydroplaned down 12 Mile. Water roaring around me, shimmering wings that blinded those around me. Not that wings would help; wherever I went, the water on the ground rushed up to blindfold me.
White-knuckled grip on the steering wheel, if I had seen anything then it would have been a ghost. I kept telling myself to keep going, keep driving forward. There's a red light ahead, and once I make it there, I can stop. I can let out the breath I'd been holding and laugh. It'd be a great laugh, one that pried open my clenched jaw and jerked my head against the seat. I'd be bent over the steering wheel, laughing so hard it didn't really feel like laughter.
Then I'd wipe the water pooling in my eyes and admit that this was terrifying. That I've never felt more scared in my life. That ideals like loyalty hardly matter when you're in a vehicle you can hardly control, moving forward in an impenetrable grey and hoping you won't crash.
When I left my playwriting class it was still raining. My shirt hadn't quite dried from the walk to class, and now the mist soaked through my clothing, relentless even in its lightness. Driving home, the lights were blinding. I could have shut my eyes every time a car passed and it wouldn't change anything. I didn't, though. Instead I carried on, squinting through the glare even as my breath clung to the interior window and sealed me away from the world.
Then I came home, and there was the phone. Here come the waterworks, here comes the real flood threat. She told me to break up with her. Begging through tears, saying that there's nothing she fears more than losing me, but maybe it's time to face that fear. Shaky-voiced. I knew it was coming, knew she was going to do something like that.
"You're not allowed to choose that." Clouding my window with the fog of my breath. I don't want to look. But I do anyways, I always do. The lights are blinding.
She feels horrible. She wants to die. I've said that to her, that's defrost. She doesn't want to live like this anymore, since living is too painful. I'm prepared for if that happens. I could live in her absence. I wouldn't be destroyed by it. The thing about grief is that it doesn't often catch you by surprise. I didn't see it coming, but I felt it coming.
Closing my eyes is a defense mechanism. I don't have to watch the lights fill my windshield. Limp bodies are less likely to get injured in a crash.
But I don't close my eyes. I can't close my eyes. I tell her that there's a red light. I tell her that she's hydroplaning right now. And she's right to be scared. She can't see the light through the rain, but it's there. And when she gets there, she can laugh and cry and park her car and run through the rain until she gets in the building and waits for her clothes to dry.
My heart is stone right now. I'm dry, since the interior of the car is dry, but I'm going to have to step out in the rain.
