Dancing in the Rain

Explanation

Hello everyone! How's it going?

First off, thank you all again for reading this story! It means the world to me!

Second, I feel like I need to explain a few things about this story, especially the ending. Because as most of you can see, it wasn't exactly a happy ending. I feel like you should know what I was thinking when I was planning this story, so I feel compelled to write out an explanation for it.

So to start off, not all endings are happy. The thing about stories is that some conflicts aren't meant to be resolved. In this story, the conflict just wasn't resolved, and that's how I planned it out.

Here's what was going through my head when brainstorming.

First we'll start off with Anne and Frank's relationship.

Obviously, their relationship was extremely toxic. Frank was always abusing Anne, physically and verbally, which of course messed with her feelings. A lot of you might think, why didn't she just leave him?

It's simple, really. One reason was fear. Most abusive relationships aren't noticed for fear of the abusive partner. The victim is too afraid to tell someone about how violent their partner is because then, the violence would intensify. Which would be the last thing the victim needs.

Another reason was desperation. Anne already had one failed marriage with Stacey's father, Marshall. Nobody knows why they were arguing, so we can all safely assume they just weren't working. But the point is, their marriage was a fail. Anne didn't want another failed marriage with Frank, so she pretended everything was fine. She wanted a happy marriage, so she stuck with him in spite of his violent actions towards her. She didn't even leave him when he hit Stacey, otherwise I would've mentioned that the two were done.

So that's why Anne and Frank's relationship remained the way it was.

Now, Stacey and Jesse.

Think of them as Romeo and Juliet. They were both victims of fate. And because they were controlled by fate, they didn't have a happy ending.

When Jesse and Stacey were dancing in the rain, it was in that moment that they realized they were in love. Rain was their happiness together. It was their own thing. It was their forever.

When Jesse was killed, Stacey held onto his corpse, telling herself that he was only in a deep sleep, one too deep to wake up from. Then it starts to rain, and to stay true to her word, she "dances" with him so they could spend another night together in the rain like before.

That's how I wanted the last chapter to be. See, if I put in another chapter after that, showing Anne leaving Frank, it wouldn't have the ending that I wanted. I wanted the last chapter to have the last words, "dancing in the rain."

So in the epilogue, Stacey was sitting by the cliff that she and Jesse used to always go to. When it starts to rain, she feels happy. Why? Whenever it rains, she can feel Jesse's presence within the water. So she gets up to dance so she can feel like he's dancing with her. The ending of the epilogue said that for the rest of her life, she would dance in the rain just the way Jesse did that one night. That's why she was happy when it started to rain.

Other than that, she wasn't happy at all. She lost the love of her life, and she lives in an abusive home. How could she be happy with a life like that? She could only be happy when it rains, all because she can feel that Jesse was with her whenever it did. Those were her only moments of happiness after his death.

If it weren't for the rain, she probably would've committed suicide so she could escape her home life and be with Jesse again.

That's why rain is so significant in this story. It's her only source of happiness.

So there's the explanation to the ending. There was no resolution, because this wasn't meant to be a fairytale. My intention for this was for people to think it would be a romantic story with a happy ending, and then have them understand what I was trying to get at in the end.

Hopefully this covers things up for you guys! Sorry if it was kinda dark, but that was what I was thinking for this story.

Have a lovely day!

Peace and love,
May