ADORE

the first autumn rain

All my life I've been obsessed with rom-coms. You name it, I've seen it. Oh, you have a favorite romance but it's a book? Yeah, I've probably read it. Hell, I've probably read and reread it. So as you might guess I was a bit disappointed to be 20 years old and not even have had my first kiss yet. I don't want to be Drew Barrymore in never been kissed, I want to be Drew Barrymore in 50 first dates maybe without the amnesia but I'll take what I can get, but the reality of it was I was most like Drew Barrymore in he's just not that into you.

I've come to accept that life isn't a fairytale, there's no happily ever after, and no perfect person is coming to rescue me from every bad thing in my life. So I just stay perpetually single, any romantic needs I might have fulfilled by the movies and the books where it always ends perfectly with two people declaring their love and kissing. Kissing, kissing, kissing. In the rain, at an airport, on a bridge, sitting on a fucking table kissing over a birthday cake. Because in real life it never turns out that way. A case in point is the situation I'm in at this very moment.

My cousin who I've been close with since literal birth has just called me crying her eyes out. Why? Because her high school sweetheart, who she has been with for five years, has cheated on her while she sits at home pregnant with his child. All I can say is... what a piece of shit. Actually, that's a lie. I said what a piece of shit, do you want me to break his kneecaps with a lead pipe to which I got a resounding no. Hmm, maybe a baseball bat then. What kind of a grown man does shit like this? I'll never understand it.

A drop of rain splatters on my windshield followed by two more. "Alexa, I have to go okay? I don't wanna be driving home in this rain."

"Okay, Dee please tell me we can have a girls night this weekend. I need to watch bad reality tv and forget about my own life for a bit."

"Yeah, of course, I'll hit you up Friday morning but call me before then if you or baby sunny need me. Promise you'll let me know if you change your mind about me breaking his kneecaps." I joked.

We said our goodbyes and I started the drive back to my little studio apartment. Poor Alexa. Poor baby sunny. I had joked when my cousin first told me that she was pregnant, that it was a baby sunflower seed. I've called the baby sunny ever since.

It was fitting I thought as I parked and ran toward my apartment complex. Alexa has always been more hippie-dippy, flower child, with long skirts and healthy living while I was more grungy, boy clothes, still wearing eyeliner from yesterday, and constantly putting crap into my body.

The light was flickering in the entryway of my apartment, and combined with the rain it made everything seem a bit more spooky than it was. Twisting my key into the hole of my mailbox I pulled out a couple of envelopes and my monthly cosmopolitan then went up the stairs to my shoebox home on the second floor. My apartment was freezing, kicking the shitty radiator in the corner. I took off my hoodie and started up the shower. Stepping under the warm spray, I sighed. Ahh, time for a big glass of Dr.Pepper and twilight. That's my tradition, at the first autumn rain every year I watch the twilight movies. Say what you will about Twilight but I'd much rather be watching Kristen Stewart's stilted acting than be in my cousin's position right now. Edward had just started playing claire de lune when I drifted peacefully into slumber.

                                                                       ☪

I woke up the next day invigorated and ready for the long list of things I had to do. But first things first, where is my baby at? I called for Stevie in each room of the apartment before I finally saw a little tiny paw sticking out from behind the stuffed grateful dead bear on my futon. "There you are, Stevie, it's time for breakfast girl." Stevie was my 8-year-old chihuahua. She was named after Stevie Nicks and she was my favorite thing in the world. When I was 12 my neighbor's chihuahua was having babies. She ended up having 4 healthy pups and one unhealthy runt. She was small, could barely move, and kept getting pushed away from the milk by the other puppies. My neighbor Darryl said she would be dead before the end of the night. I took her back to my room having no clue how to help her but desperately needing to try. I rode my bike 3 miles to Walmart and spent all of the money I had from babysitting on a puppy milk substitute and a syringe. She made it through the night and every night after that. She was still half the size of a normal chihuahua and she slept all the time but she was as healthy as any other dog.