That's When ~ Adopted by Elizabeth Olsen

Chapter 7: Midnight Rain

Quin groans as she lays in bed. That wasn't so bad, she muses, though she wonders if she's going to school tomorrow. There's only a tiny bruise peeking out beneath her hairline and if she trims her bangs and wears her hair down and straight she's sure no one would be able to tell. But she's tired and pretty shitty with makeup. If her father does call her in sick, he'll still want her out of the house. She can just call and pick up extra shifts at the cafe. Tammy and Bill only have other people working at the cafe in the afternoon, and it's usually her and her friends. Aside from that it's just the two of them, and they're always looking for a day off to visit another museum or drive out and go hiking somewhere. So she's sure they wouldn't mind. And when her friends stop by in the afternoon she'll just say something about funeral prep or rehearsal or whatever.

It's a little after midnight and she still can't fall asleep. It's like her brain is hard wired to be awake at this hour. She decides to climb out onto the fire scape and up to the roof. She loves the roof. Half of the roof on their building is concrete and the other half is gravel. It's perfect. On the concrete she'll practice skateboarding because there is, luckily, a three foot wall that goes around the entire perimeter of the roof. And she uses the gravel to practice flips and other crazy shit she likes to do when no one is around. And no one ever goes up there, except for Quin. And she's never brought anyone else up there.

It's also where she keeps all her art stuff. She likes her art to be private, and away from other people's judgement until she's finished. Whenever she forgets and leaves some of her art around the apartment, the piece normal ends up in the dump. It's never good enough. The only people who get to see her art in progress are her friends and, of course, her art teacher.

So she keeps all her art stuff on the roof. A couple years ago she'd found an old easel and a drawing desk in the side of the road. It had been tough work but in a few hours she managed to disassemble both and bring them straight to the roof where she reassembled them. She had then borrowed fifty bucks from her brother to buy off an old wedding canopy tent from one of their neighbors. She hadn't been working at the cafe yet but luckily a few weeks later a local boutique had paid her 275 dollars for one of her paintings so that they could display it in the boutique. So it had been a good purchase and a worthwhile loan.

Slowly she had begun collecting more old wooden pieces of furniture and adding it to her collection, though she would never take any fabric pieces of furniture, she just didn't trust it. She also collected other things. Old fans, air conditioning units, lights, and even old TVs. She had watched several youtube videos on fixing old TVs and managed to flip a few using parts from a couple other TVs. She kept the biggest one and the smallest one for herself but sold the other two. She had then used the money to buy a space heater, for the winter, and some new cushions and blankets for the wooden benches and chairs. Then around fall of her sophomore year, she started working at the cafe and she'd bought more lights and some sound proof and insulated panels. She would attach both the sound proof and the insulation to separate tarps that she would string up so that she could take them down if she wanted a breeze or something.

As she climbs onto the roof she realizes it's raining. Great. And it's fucking cold. Probably around 38 degrees or something, she guesses. But the cold water feels nice against her sore skin so she doesn't mind. She climbs up the roof and walks into her art studio, grabbing her brother's old speaker and connecting her phone to it, pressing shuffle on her group playlist that she shares with her friends.

The first song that comes on is "Midnight Rain" by Taylor Swift. How fitting, she laughs.

She rummages through the cubby's that she has up here that hold both art materials and other crap she doesn't want to keep in the apartment. She manages to find a towel and a spare change of clothes and makes a mental note to replace the towel tomorrow. She leaves the towel on one of the chairs and puts the extra clothes away before grabbing the speaker and heading out into the rain. Thankfully, the speaker is waterproof.

And she dances in the rain. All by herself. Spinning in circles.

She used to take dance classes but she doesn't anymore. But that doesn't matter. She knows she's still a good dancer. Her friends have pointed it out on multiple occasions. One time when she and Lucy were bored they booked one of the studios at NYU and Lucy taught her the ballet routine she was doing in class. One of the teachers had been walking by and suggested that she join, but she said no, of course. She needed to be making money in her free time not picking up more classes.

"Life isn't how to survive the storm, it's about how to dance in the rain," She thinks to herself and then laughs. Did she really just quote Taylor Swift in her head? Yeah, she did. And she sure as hell is going to figure out how to dance in the rain.