It poured that day.

Out of everything that happened, the thing I remember most was that it rained. I found the rain both comforting... and foreboding.

Whenever it rains, I'm taken back to a small moment in my childhood. My brother and I were sitting on the end of my parents' bed, our feet dangling off the edge and our arms wrapped around the metal frame. My mom was vacuuming and over that and the rain, we could hardly hear the TV playing in front of us. But it didn't matter that the TV was hard to hear or that the light from the ceiling partially obscured Little Foot's face with its glaring reflection, I knew in that moment that everything was as it should be.

There could be a number of reasons why that memory stuck out to me: the light of my parents' bedroom, the soft beats of the rain, the coldness of the metal underneath my fingers. I can tell you about the irony taste of the bed's frame or how the vacuum smelled of stale, slightly burnt air. But as much as it fulfilled my senses, I think the main reason why I remember that moment was because I felt completely safe. I was happy. There was this complete and raw sense of fulfillment that I can only begin to understand now, twelve years later. In that moment, however, with my family beside me and without a single worry on my mind, I knew that I could never be happier.

But not all rainy days bring me comfort and looking at myself now, I wonder if that one day will tarnish my rainy days forever.

________

I sat at my desk that morning—which was really one o'clock in the afternoon—a semi-finished canvas laying in front of me. After a moment's contemplation, I dipped a small brush into a glob of cheap acrylic paint and gently dabbed the canvas' surface, creating a series of lilac-looking flowers across the left hand side. I had started the Monet-esque painting a few months back, but now that it was summer I finally found time—and motivation—to finish it.

It didn't last long though. As I sat there, attempting to transform my series of colored blobs into some impressionistic garden, I found my myself continuously gazing towards my window. I watched as small droplets of rain collected at my windowsill and the way the tree branches swirled viciously in the wind. It was mesmerizing. I felt both the comfort of the rain, as I always did, and the sinisterness of the twisting branches. The rain was heavy and the wind was loud, but it didn't feel quite like a full-blown storm. Something was missing that would turn this summer shower into a hurricane. To this day I can never put a finger onto what it was. But that's the least of my concern.

I swear I only blinked. I stared at the empty, thunderous ocean in front of me, unconsciously rubbing the zipper of my purple raincoat in between my fingers. I found it strange that I couldn't remember putting on my coat and boots, stepping out of my front door, or walking the ten minutes to the cliffs. My memory felt as fresh as the few seconds of time when you wake up in someplace that's not your bedroom: confused, dazed, and dream-like. As I stared down at the ocean below me, a sharp, prickling sensation ran down my back. My eyes were pulled to the water where monstrous waves crashed against the cliffside and where white foam drew cracks along the glossy blue surface. Just as I had found the rain outside my window to be mesmerizing, I found the pull of the ocean to be even more entrancing. I don't know how long I stared at those waves for and it didn't occur to me that I was looking for something until I saw what I had been looking for.

I don't really remember what happened after that. It was just a blur of cold, water, and haziness. I remember several different feelings. Falling, freezing, drowning, and screaming, among the most prominent. In one rapid motion, my body had been hurled into the ferocious waves below me. I struck the water like it was concrete. Thin, baby blue fabric wrapped around me once I was in the water, encasing my arms and legs and restricting my movement. I wouldn't have been able to swim anyways. The waves tossed me effortlessly and I lost any sense of where the surface was. The sharp, frigid cold of the water bit at my skin and slowly, I felt my lungs cede to the ocean's wrath.

I squeezed my eyes shut and took one last breath of air. One last gulp of the beautiful, warm air. I almost smiled. It was clear and delicious, sweet-smelling and tasting of cinnamon apples. If there was one final breath I could have taken before I drowned, that would have been it.

My eyes snapped open. I had breathed in air. For a moment, in my daze, I thought I was still drowning. But no, the only water I saw in front of me was the water painted neatly on a canvas. A brush was held shakily in my right hand, a glob of baby blue paint ready to be applied to the oceanic landscape. I was back in my room, as if the events at the cliffside had never occured, even if I could still feel the trickling of rain down my back and the frigid water inside my lungs. At first, I had wondered if I had fallen asleep and dreamt the whole thing, but as my attention turned towards my painting I knew something was very, very off.

The bright, colorful array of flowers over a lush, green landscape was now replaced with a muted blue ocean, the waves thrashing against each other in furious, vivid motion. It was as if those waves I had seen just moments before were replicated exactly in this painting in front of me. Though I don't remember it, I knew I had painted it. The impressionistic style was the same, the way I dabbed the brush against the canvas instead of using strokes. It was something I could imagine myself painting, even if I didn't remember doing so. Without realizing it, I found myself searching for the little dot of baby blue among the darkness of the ocean's waves. I felt only slightly comforted by the fact that I couldn't find it.

It's finally up! I spent so long trying to figure out how I would start my story and finally I decided to take a step back. I could figure out the details and how everything fits in later, all I needed to do was just write. So that's just what I did.

Thank you for reading this chapter!
Voted and comments always appreciated.

As always,
xoxo. Emmy