she has a fantasy, lying in the wake of the coming thunderheads. a dark, dangerous fantasy, lead on by the tantalizing lures of the summer storm.

throughout her life, she was told she was the human incarnation of a hurricane. fueled by the sun-bleached months of july and august, a swirl of emotions, beautiful and terrible, that came and receded with the summer winds. when they came, they were intensely powerful, enough to demolish everything in its path, whether they be petrifying fear, smothering love, or agonizing sorrow.

so perhaps that was why she felt a moment of enlightenment, a connection to the wall of water moving her way. perhaps this will make her whole - witnessing the storm of the decade.

for months, she has felt something missing from her soul. she tried and she tried and she tried to fill the empty part of it, but it always seemed just a moment out of reach.

deep down, she knows exactly what is missing, no matter how passionately she tries to convince herself she doesn't need it. 

the idea has crossed her mind before. several times, in fact. frankly, it must have crossed her mind every day since that fateful day, lying on the floor at the beginning of november. 

but never before has it seemed so tempting.

she takes her bike out for the last time before the waters sweep it away. on the horizon she can see the gathering dark clouds, but she pays it no mind as the setting august sun melts the rice fields around her into blazes.

suddenly she's curled up in the bathtub, rain from a hole in the ceiling battering her face, clutching her phone, sobbing. she dials the number, praying for service, and by some miracle, hears it ring. 

"i love you," she croaks into the microphone, hands shaking, unsure of whether she had been sent to voicemail or not.

"i miss you."

and then the line cuts out. the ceiling implodes. the world goes dark.

she slams on the bike brakes. shaking her head, she pauses her music, chastising herself inwardly for thinking of such a thing. 

scoffing, she kicks off again and continues down the road. 

the road is underwater. so is the house. the gulf has infiltrated their property; only treetops poke out from the shimmering surface of the murky, debris-filled water. the whole family is sitting on the roof, baking in the summer heat against the shingles, being eaten alive by the hellish swarms of insects, thriving off the smothering humidity. 

it's been days, and they're starting to lose hope. 

suddenly a boat comes put-putting in from the distance, a small speck against the blinding rays of the sun, but grows closer and closer as she realizes it's heading right for them.

the whole family rises to their feet, hollering and screaming, praying that they can catch the boater's attention. it seems to work. in a few short moments, she can make out the figures in the boat, and her heart swells with a shameful joy, but joy nonetheless.

as her family is escorted off the roof, he gives an offertory shrug. "we had heard that y'all had gone underwater. i had to make sure you were okay."

and she swept him up in her arms, crying tears of wholesome gratitude, despite their previous bad blood, and all was well again.

this time, she doesn't stop the bike, but audibly laughs aloud, just at the impossibility of it. the storm wasn't even supposed to be that bad. she was well out of the surge zone anyways. but she lets her mind continue to wander, for she knew quite well that if she tried to stop it, she would only destroy herself in the process. 

so suddenly she's at the shelter, exhausted, dripping with sweat and tears. their house has been out of electricity for a week now, and they were forced to relocate temporarily. in her small pink backpack she holds whatever of her belongings she chose to hold on to. she's wandering around, trying to find someone else she knows.

she doesn't hear see him until he says her name, right behind her.

she whips around, shock written plainly on her face. after all this time, this is how they meet again. the moment she had dreamed about for ten agonizing months. she just never fathomed it would be like this.

"hey," she breathes, speechless.

"it's been a while, eh?"

"y-yeah," she gulps down the rush of paralyzing, confusing emotion, "one hell of a year, right?"

"yeah."

and then they just stare at each other. they are both a mess, disheveled and grimy from the aftermath and changed significantly since they'd last seen each other. she had lost weight and no longer wore her glasses, gotten a haircut and changed her style in clothes. he had a stronger build, and grown quite a bit of peach fuzz. but despite their differences, the nappy hair and tired eyes, they just cannot tear their eyes from each other.

all the words she ever wanted to say to him, all the times she envisioned this moment, everything just dies on her lips. 

finally, she forces out, "what...what do you want to do? we can...we can walk away and pretend this never happened. we can...talk about things." a third option popped in her mind, one that was dangerous and so terribly wrong, she dared not voice it. "or...or we..."

but suddenly there's a soft glint in his eyes that broadcast the same idea. "or we can..."

and that's all that was said before his lips met hers, and the meeting was never spoken of again.

or perhaps it was, she didn't know.

it was only a fantasy.

her mind had a tendency to turn even the slightest things into a melodrama. even the big things, the serious things, the inappropriate things. but she just couldn't help herself, her hopelessly optimistic yet cynical mind had a mind of its own.

she turned her bike around then, well aware of the ridiculousness and the pettiness of her own ideas. it was something out of a soap opera. she wasn't even sure if that's what happened when you lost power. was that what shelters were for?

she'd never truly been through a big hurricane before.

but she'd heard stories, so many stories, that allowed her mind to wander and create her own, however so wild and impractical. 

and she knew they would never happen. could never happen. should never happen. but it brings her a peace to allow them to exist in her own mind, trapped away in her own little bubble, where no one can reach them but herself and whoever she chooses to share them with.

so, she goes home. she locks up the bike in the shop where all the other things they don't want to blow away in the wind had been stored. sighing, she closes the door, leans up against the aluminum wall, and sinks down into the grass below.

she looks up into the darkening skies and sees a double rainbow. 

isn't it ironic? she laughs to herself, thinking of the old alanis morissette song she and her mom used to listen to. a rainbow before a storm. and not just one, but two.

maybe it was a sign that everything was going to be quite alright. 

she tilts her head back against the aluminum, soaking up the last bit of the sun rays as it sinks below the horizon, ready to do what any rational person does in apprehension of a storm.

watch, wait, prepare for the worst, and wish for the best.