When Rain Rises

Chapter 14

'I got new friend today. She is Sarah the cat. Dad found her and say she is mine now. She good cat. Sis throw up and is sick. I have clean up. Was bad gross. Mom made me drink milk but I not want to. Hate milk. She said I need it to grow, but I plenty big now.'

Rain's past seemed more boring than he had hoped. He was sitting at his desk flipping through his journal. Since past Rain had opted out of dating any of the journal entries, which was, admittedly, consistent with his current self, he could only guess how old he was by the quality of his writing. Either way, he had read through nearly every entry, but none of them revealed anything substantial.

There were just a few details of the house he lived in before his parents died. He could have guessed that he didn't like school back then, either. And he could care less about little kid Rain's preference of food, or that he despised milk. Rain didn't even know if he'd like milk now, seeing as how he hadn't tried it since apparently when he was little.

He did notice one thing, though, that caught his eye and raised questions. Many of the pages were torn out. The majority of them were, in fact. He was going to take an educated guess and presume that was because someone either didn't like, or didn't want seen, the content of those pages. But who, and why? What could little Rain possibly have written about that would cause someone to tear it out?

He sighed in exasperation, closing the journal and shaking his head. It was then that he heard a series of little knocks on his door.

"Yeah, come in," Rain called out, leaning back in his chair. Just in time, Cloud appeared at his doorway and stepped in.

"Hey, Rain," she greeted. "Glad you're finally awake. I tried to talk to you earlier, but you were a sleeping rock."

"A sleeping rock?" he replied slyly. "Really?"

"You know what I meant!"

"What is it you wanted to talk to me about?"

Cloud closed the door behind her and pointed at the journal. "Did that help?"

"A little," Rain said softly. "Where'd you find it?"

Cloud bit her lip, a nonverbal tell that Rain knew meant she was silencing herself. "I can't tell you."

Rain thought about what he should say next. If he put the screws to her to coerce an answer it might tell him more about his past and who tore the pages out. On the other hand, he could fail to coerce her and lose out on any other information about his past she might volunteer later. Plus, she didn't have to do any of this for him in the first place.

"That's fine," Rain said with a nod of understanding. "Thank you anyway, Cloud." A clever question then came to mind. "Say, Cloud, even if you can't tell me where you found it, can you tell me if there was anything wrong with it?"

Cloud tilted her head. "Wrong with it?"

"Like, was it damaged, maybe missing a few pages?"

She shook her head. So either Cloud was lying, or since the time that she found the journal and when Rain took it, someone had ripped the pages out. That left Rain with one extremely likely suspect. "Alright, thanks again Cloud. You really helped me out, you know."

Cloud smiled gleefully and then disappeared back outside his room.

"So why would Aunt Leith sabotage my journal?" Rain muttered to himself.

It was another warm, clear day in Apollo and the good weather helped Rain push the brewing questions about his past out of mind as he approached the field. Per usual, Aiden and Alyse were already there. Aiden seemed to be coaching her on her round-kick. Just like yesterday, Aiden was sporting his Vincent attire. Rain couldn't help but find himself excited. This Rite he was about to do would mean Rain would finally be able to learn about and use the cool gear Aiden was wearing, and they had used against the cartel.