Summer Rain

XLI ~ Like Electricity

{Wildest Dreams - Taylor Swift}

...You see me in hindsight, tangled up with you all night, burnin' it down, someday when you leave me, I bet these memories follow you around...

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31st July

     With stars to light my path across the dewy night grass, I had dressed in whatever was clean and not crumpled from having lain in my cramped little case, ending up in jeans and a burgundy t-shirt, and before I left, I took a last glance around and shut off my light to my room. Mom and Dad were watching TV, silently and on separate areas of the sofa. Bodhi was packing his things, and Cady, well, Cady was on her phone to her mysterious 'bae'.

     They all knew where I was going, they could tell by the assuredness of my gait and the smile that I tried to hide, and there was no fuss, no interrogations, nothing except a few short smiles and looks of 'go on, get him'.

     For months I had walked back and forth under the same canvas sky, painted each minute of the day, inconstantly beautiful and the witness to everything. It gave me comfort in the clouds that had begun to form, sights I hadn't seen in a while, and I let my breathlessness slow me down for me to take a look, and memorise everything around me.

     A final dance on our final night. How poetic. How sad. How tragically perfect. It was like he was trying to frame it all perfectly. It all started with his dance lesson, and now I knew it was ending with one final waltz, and we would sway together, held against one another's bodies like the watercolour dancers his hands had created. His hands that had held me like I was his ballerina and he was my muse. I was going off to Juilliard, and he was free to spread his wings and be his own person, the person he's always wanted to be.

     There was a chill in the air leaving me cold as I made it to his door, as I knocked I could hear him fumbling around from within the walls that had nurtured this bond that I now knew we had to sever.

     He swung open the door, grabbing my hand and pulling me close to him, the door closing behind him. The small vinyl player spun a record and music began to play softly.

  "Hi..." He whispered, his eyes on me as I looked up at him.

  "Hi..." I responded, moving my hand from his chest where I had placed it habitually, searching down his veiny arm for his long, callused and yet gentle fingers. They interlaced with mine so easily. So perfectly. So silently.

     No words were spoken, I rested my head on his chest, wrapped my arm around him, and we danced. It was like finding that moment that brings back a rush of memories and standing there with him in the candlelight, hearing the song that played around us, feeling his heart drumming against where I rested my head, I felt everything rush back, and I knew I was where I was supposed to be.

     Soul mates come in all forms. There are best friend soul mates, and sibling soul mates and people you share interests with soul mates, and they're all as significant as each other. They're not necessarily who you spend your lives with, but they change you into who you were meant to be. They light a fire within you that can never be extinguished, but they leave you yearning and missing them, even in the quiet hours of the night, when your life has raged on without them, they will always still be alive within that fire. They will always burn at your soul, even when all is said and done.

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ELLIOT

     If you'd asked me at the start of Summer if I'd be slow-dancing with the girl of my dreams before she faded away out sight in the morning, I'd have laughed. I'd have weighed up the constant shadow and constant threat that my Father had blighted my life with, and thought that no amount of trying would have let me be with her. It would have been too dangerous.