Under the Umbrella ✓

-06-

Fan-fucking-tastic.

If eyes could shoot lasers, the window Aria was glaring at would have had a hole by now, even though the window nor the view outside was to be blamed.

She watched the woeful sight of the dark splotches on the street caused by the droplets that had previously fallen. Much to her dismay, it continued to descend onto the ground.

Still, it didn't stop her from walking out of the café. She stayed put by the sidewalk, where she was roofed, and looked at the sky, silently asking God if He hated her that much. As if to answer the question, the sky released its entire load at one go, the rapid taps of the rain against the ground grating her ears.

She felt as if the sky was inviting her and tempting her to cry along with it. It felt like she was being mocked for everything wrong in her life. She despised this. She never asked for any of this. It was unfair! There was something Sandra told Aria whenever she was having a bad day. "Not every day is a rainy day, Aria," she'd say. Ironic how it was the only words Aria recalled at the very moment. She was close to humorlessly laughing like a maniac on the street. Maybe not every day was a rainy day, but the ravages it brought down managed to hover and linger around her anyway.

She observed the few people by the nearly eventless street trying to scramble away from the rain in an eerie calmness on the exterior, but inside, she was seething. She didn't know what or whom she was mad at anymore. In her eyes, at this point, it was suddenly the rain's fault because there had to be something to take it out on. She didn't know what she was going to achieve by defiantly walking into the rain, but it was exactly what she was going to do.

Just when her left foot stepped onto a puddle of water, something sharply pulled her right back to where she stood, as if time had rewound. She first glanced at the massive hand that had enclosed her upper arm inside it and then its owner.

She stared at him, meeting his blank expression with a blank expression of her own. He released her arm and pushed something into her hand, but before she could see what it was, he jutted his chin towards the entrance of Coffee Break.

"I come here often. Return it to me when you see me again." And with that, he ran under the pouring rain, crossing the vacant street to get to the opposite side.

She finally looked at the object in her hand only to realize it was an umbrella. A common black umbrella that wasn't so common to be carried around for a sudden shower.

By the time Aria looked up again, he was gone, and if it were any other day, she would have had plenty of questions, but it was one of those days – those days when reality was in desperate need of attention. The fury she took on just a while ago was broken all in a moment, and instead, she felt depleted and dismal. She uncoiled the umbrella and strode out of the shade in steady strides, the rain tenaciously hitting against the fabric above her.

She walked as if she knew what her next steps were, but she didn't. She didn't know where she was heading, where she wanted to go, or where she would even end up. Her life seemed intertwined with routines and the expected, and she all but wanted something promising and easing, anything to lean on, even if it was a mere boulder.

Her composure couldn't last much long amidst the lonely walk and the swarming thoughts in her head. She had been postponing the inevitable for so long, and there was only so much her eyes could hold. Exhausted by her throat protesting, she gave in to her insolent tears at last under the sanctuary of the stranger's umbrella.