Rhayne

One

The soft pattering of water sprinkled across my skin as I looked up to the starry midnight sky.

I savored the cold yet bland and empty taste of rain on my tongue, my warm breath releasing vapors of steamy air. I danced around in the puddles of water on the small street near my home. Few cars were parked on the street, and fewer head lights were on despite the night being late.

The tiny one-story boxed houses lined side by side, standing short but firm. They, like the water that glistened upon my cheeks and raincoat, were bland and cold. They lacked the warm quality of what people considered home. The people in them were too cold, and vile. I hated my neighbors- they always argued loudly and were malicious.

But my home was like none other. Though small, it emitted the warmest of lights and loveliest of smells. It was the embodiment of home- when you entered, you were safe and sound. You could be yourself when others were or weren't around. And the smell! The aroma of ripe strawberries never left.

Though... maybe it was because my mother never left. Even now I could hear her sickly coughs, hear her choking on her own blood as she slept. I stopped my dancing in the rain to stand steadfast, frowning at our house. Even now the sounds of her coughs dimmed the brightened home. My young mind considered that to be impossible, for someone like her, she could only brighten the house more. Her scent, though smelling of strawberries, now was clouded with an undeniable, cloying scent of rot.

She was dying.

My young mind was assure of that. I dreaded every moment, seeing her nestled in her bed, cocooned in blankets. I dreaded carrying my feet up to our porch step and seeing it. But if I stayed outside any longer, I'd end up just like her.

Because this was all my fault. I asked her so many times to play with me, in the cold rain. Never have I noticed how she shivered in the cold, too kind to complain but too poor to afford a raincoat of her size for her self. So selfish of me to demand so much, when she worked so hard in the day and hardly rested in the night.

Somehow finding the will, I carry myself into our house. I shake off my raincoat, and trudge myself to her room not far from the front door. She rested on her bed. Her breaths came in raspy whispers, echoing throughout the walls. They sounded so sharp and ill. I winced. She wakes at the sound of my pattering feet. Her eyelids flutter softly with sleep.

"Ay mami..." She murmurs, opening her arms. I crawl into them, nestling my head against the crook of her armpit.

"Tch, your all wet!" She exclaims, but her voice is soft and welcoming. She smiles down at me with the warmth I loved dearly. Her small eyes crinkled as she did so. Her face crinkled like a paper bag. But nonetheless she was beautiful to me. My father had left because he could not deal with the matter of her aging naturally.

He could not stand the way her body did not look the same it did years ago when he loved her. Years before she had me. But I loved all the things about her. I adored the grey's in her long brown hair, the shriveling and crunching of her skin after years and years of sunlight and water and hardships. I adored how her chapped pink lips stretched and stretched like a Cheshire cats, her lip sometimes bumping over her crooked teeth.

"You must dry, before you get sick, too." She whispers, kissing my forehead. The dew of water dampens her lips.

"Mama..." I start, tearing at the skin of my bottom lip nervously. Her brows furrow in curiosity as she listens to me, ready to answer whatever question I threw towards her. Her hands softly, but weakly, swat at my hands as a reminder to stop my bad habit.

"Is it my fault you are sick?"

Her face hardens. "No. Why ever would you think that, mami?" She asks, caressing my face. She brushes a wet strand of hair out of my face.