Rain Season in The Holy City

the anklet

We got back to the pool long after the sun had set. As we pulled into the parking lot, Athena was on the phone with some of her high school friends, asking them to join us for night swimming.

"Come on Jamison," she nearly shouted into the phone speaker, " it's going to be fun!"

She put him on speaker as he said, "Okay fine I'm on my way. Who else is coming?"

Harry and I stepped out of the car and walked towards the pool. Athena was walking behind us, but she was still on the phone calling other people to see if they wanted to come hang out.

The wind blew a cold chill past us, causing me to shiver. The warm North Carolina heat had gone with the sun setting. Harry noticed, and turned on his heel, speed walking back to his car and pulling something out of his backseat. Both Athena and I looked at him with confused expressions on our faces as he walked back. He came up to me and handed me a red sweatshirt.

"Here, this should keep you warm until we get in the water."

He was right, it did keep me warm. And it smelled like laundry detergent and mint. But no warm jacket or shots of ciroc could keep the cold of the dark water and the chill of my past on my back could keep us warm the rest of the night by the pool.

Time passed and Athena's friends showed up one by one, turning our now close trio to a small party of young adults talking about our futures and what we would do when we get back to school in the fall, getting drunk on mixed drinks and each other. We laughed till our stomachs hurt, drank until most of us couldn't see straight, and lived one of the best first nights of summer any of us had ever had before. The air continued to get colder and the water in the pool was not heated, so I had the idea to turn the hot showers in the bathrooms on and take turns defrosting from the cold. First to go were a few of Athena's friends that I had never met before. God I was freezing, so I decided I would call dibs for next. Harry beat me to it.

"I call next on the shower guys, I was not made for this cold," He said, then looked at me and smiled, " Clara, would you like to join me?"

I could feel my head start to spin and my cheeks turned as red as the sweatshirt I was wearing. Immediately the group began to chuckle, involving "ooo"s and "ahh"s from a couple of the guys. Athena shot me a worried look, then glared at Harry without him noticing.

I could not be that girl who was timid and afraid. I would not be who Dylan had made me out to be. I would be that girl I was before I met him, carefree and spirited, down for anything and everything. I would not be reduced to the scared girl who couldn't let herself fall anymore.

"Yeah, sure, that sounds like a good time," I said with a fake smile on my face. Yes, I wanted to get to know this guy more than just a hookup, but this seemed like that was the way it was going. If getting to know him by approaching the way I had approached things with guys that didn't mean much to me in the past few months, then I would have to do it.

Athena raised an eyebrow while looking from Harry to me and then back at Harry, she shook her head, knowing there was no stopping the process I was going through at this stage of life, but I think she really did like Harry for me and she didn't want it to go the way it seemed like it was about to go.

With a few claps and cheers from the group behind me, I allowed Harry to lead me towards the clubhouse to the showers. He held the door open for me as we went inside, and I could feel his eyes burning through my skin, but surprisingly not in a way I was normally used to from a guy I was about to sit in a shower with. We sat down on the bench in the shower, fingertips brushing against each other's, the steam swirling all around us and the cold on our skin washing away with the water going down the drain. Something else was washing away with the water, I could feel it, I just wasn't sure what it was.