Positively Negative [Rewrite]

Nov20-23: Maybe Because The Rains Came

It was fear that lead my footsteps, then. Out of my house and into the rain outside that mingled with tears that I hated the existence of. I hadn't been able to stay there a second longer. I was suffocating underneath the noise, the eyes, the laughter, the speculation, the fucking bullshit.

But I was to blame. It was all me. I was a coward to the bone—couldn't say No to having a party and prevent all this shit from happening. Couldn't tell them to Get the hell out when I first detected foul-play, or deny entrance in the first place. Couldn't fucking dump Courtney when I should have and be free of her. I wanted so badly to be free of all of them.

Without realising it, my feet had begun to lead me towards the beach, and I allowed them to keep stumbling on, feeling oddly hollow. Strangely broken.

It was an unfamiliar feeling.

The rain began to fall faster, harder, sheets blinding the path before me, but I'd walked to the beach enough times to simply walk without too much direction.

And I kept on going. Even when I felt the sand beneath my feet. Didn't hesitate as I walked into the waves either, considering I was already soaked completely through, anyway. Ankles deep. Knees. The cold was beginning to bite as I got in deep enough that the water level had reached my thighs, and then I heard a shout breaking through the torrential rain. I paused and turned, squinting to try and see the source, but it was dark. There was clearly someone out there, though, as a torch's beam was bouncing around unsteadily, pointed at me. I stared blankly for a second before I realised the erratic movements of the light, and its gradual growing in size, meant its user was running towards me.

The faint heart of mine quivered a little at the thought, as, surely, only madmen would be out at the time, this weather. I'd be killed and would never even get to apologise to my mum about the mess that our house was.

“Hey! Hey, stop!”

I didn't react much to the instructions yelled at me. Not only had I already stopped, but, without realising it, my legs had become two blocks of ice, quite incapable of moving any sort of distance. Also , the voice was vaguely familiar, and my drunken mind couldn't quite place it. Though, that could have had something to do with the rain and howling winds, contorting sounds and giving mundane objects and landscape details haunting features that, I was convincing myself, didn't actually exist.

They were still shouting as they neared, but the wind had picked up, and the rain had all of a sudden poured heavily down, and I had to squint against the beam of the torchlight. "Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," I replied, but it was carried away by the wind. I began to wade slowly, and with alcohol induced difficulty, out again, towards the anoraked figure who'd begun to lower the torch as they hovered on the edge. It was a gesture that made me smile; they were as soaked through as it was, but not allowing the tips of their boots touch the sea was so ingrained into their Things You Shouldn't Do list. They grabbed at each of my arms with their own and pulled me out of the sea once I was close enough, and then I noted the right arm, rife with bracelets of every colour imaginable.

"Are you okay?!" Freddie asked, sounding desperate. I didn't know why the tone of his voice had been so urgent, nor did I think he'd recognised me yet. But both made me want to laugh.

"Yeah." But so suddenly I felt the cold seep out of my clothing, through my skin and into my bones. I was shivering uncontrollably without having realised it, and my teeth began chattering before long. I smiled wide, eyes growing lidded as I realised how tired I was too. "Hey, Lewis."

He froze, then. It was too dark to really see, but his eyes were likely doing some form of widening, and his mouth fell open, incoherent words tumbling out. They must have been just as drunk as I was. "J-Joey?" Fuck, did I have a headache. "What--" Freddie's grip on my forearms loosened for a second, and I swayed, closing my eyes. Wondered if he'd been about to ponder on what a coincidence it was, our meeting here. Because I was.