Synonyms For Better

Chapter 8 - Easter Bunny with an Empty Basket

WHEN I FELT the rain droplet on my lip, my eyes widened and I gasped. "See? Do you see that?" I asked him, and Finn nodded, eyes falling to my lips for a second before he looked up at the sky again.

I felt my ears heat up for some reason, and I quickly wiped the tiny drop away. That was when the wind started to pick up, and then, just a bit, the clouds started to gather and darken. No one else at the bonfire noticed. 

Finn turned back to me. "It looks like you're right." 

"Checking the weather app is the secret of my success," I deadpanned.

His lips parted in realization before they slightly lifted at the corners. "Wiser words were never said, ma'am," he played along, grinning. He gave my shoulder a nudge, his smile playful, and I just rolled my eyes, hiding my own smile. 

We told Jolene and Renzo about the current situation, and we all started to walk back from the bonfire. I could feel a chill in the air, and the soundscape shifted, too: the gentle whisper of the breeze transformed into a persistent whooshing sound, getting punctuated occasionally by sharper, more forceful gusts. A couple of the people around the bonfire started to notice, but I guessed that the heat of the fire and the burn of the alcohol must have made them mostly oblivious. 

Just then, the air began to stir with an increased urgency, as if it were gathering momentum. Finn broke out in a jog and the rest of us followed. But halfway to the jeep, the clouds opened suddenly, and it started to rain. 

"Uh-oh," I heard Renzo mutter, and we quickly went and huddled under a place where there was a bench with a wooden ceiling-type structure covering it. Except the wood was just beams at the top, and there was no cover over it, so rainwater fell harshly through the even spaces. 

And so I pulled out my favourite cardigan; it was my favourite for a reason. Why? Because when you pulled an elastic on the left hand sleeve, it opened and expanded into a sort of cover. You couldn't even tell the material was waterproof, and when I'd gotten it on sale for 50 percent off, I knew I had found a treasure of some sort. I liked it because you wouldn't guess upon first sight that it could do all that. 

"Woah!" Jolene grinned, then clapped her hands. "Thank goodness for you, Cora." She grabbed a hold of one corner of the (now large) lavender coloured material, and soon enough, the guys had stopped staring in awe to follow along as well. 

"Cora-bean," Renzo sighed as he practically wringed out the entire Nile from his shirt, "this is why I love you."

"Aww, I love you too," I giggled, and Renzo winked at me. I grinned to myself; who would'a thunk my little bought-on-sale shapeshifting cardigan would save the day?!

We waited there for a while, looking out for even a small break when the rain was lighter so we could make a run for the jeep, but the rain seemed to pelt down even harder. 

I sighed quietly, tiredly running a hand through my damp hair as I held the cover up with my other hand. I looked out from under the cover again, to no avail. 

"Are you always this prepared?" I heard someone ask, and it was none other than Finn. I turned slightly to look at him and he stepped closer to me so we could hear each other better over the rain. 

"I try to be," I said, lifting a shoulder casually. 

"Yeah, you always seem to be..." Finn looked at me curiously. "How do you do it?"

I felt my face heat up a bit. "Well...personally, it's kind of a mindset I just have to have. Thinking ahead, guessing what could go wrong, and having a solution ready." 

It slightly pained me to say it out loud because I totally felt like a pessimistically cynical naysayer, but it was mostly the truth. I worried like the Easter bunny with an empty basket or a penguin in the Sahara.  I worried like worry was oxygen and I was a drowning rat, which, by the way, was what I probably looked like right now. I suppressed a gloomy sigh.