CRACK. Lightning. I flinch. Reece smirks.

BOOM. Thunder. I shudder. Reece laughs.

Lightning and thunder; two ingredients in my opinion. Just add a drop of rain and a gust of wind, turn the temperature down to 2°C and you have yourself the perfect storm. I strongly recommend cooking this up when you’re stuck in a creaky old shack of a farm house, seconds away from blowing over.

All we need now is an axe murderer to hack down the door and it’s the plot of  a horror film. I can already picture the advertisements:

Nightmare in farmhouse. Based on a true story.

At least our deaths would be remembered.

CRACK. Another shot of lightning stops me from wandering too far down the road of a scary movie, and instead brings me back to the shack. The ground is cold, the wind is seeping through the wood, the rain is pelting against the tin roof; unrelenting. I’m cold, and Reece and I are back to square one.

He has started singing. Well, more like humming words to songs under his breath in hope I can’t hear them. I can, and I can’t help realising all the songs he is singing are ones I introduced him to.

The first was The Parting Glass, followed by Fix You and now, Chasing Cars. I want to tell him to stop, but I won’t. It’s hard to know that those songs are still in his musical vocabulary, but it is a good distraction from Mother Nature’s war path outside.

“If I lay here,” Reece is singing, his voice enticing even under his breath. “If I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world?” I can’t tell if these songs remind him of me like they do for me of him, but I hope so.

I know I’m still mad. I’m still struggling to cope with the fact that he left like it was nothing, and now expects to come back as if it is the same. It’s not fair of him to expect that from me. I can’t stand that he thinks he can waltz back into my life without consequence.

Even though I struggle with all of that, it’s not what I’m angry about. I’m angry because I don’t understand. He was the one who left me. He has no reason to want to be friends again, which means he only wants that because of the situation. Then, when morning comes, when we go our separate ways, Reece will go back to pretending I don’t exist, and I’ll be the stupid one for believing anything different would happen.

The thing that doesn’t make sense though, is his honesty. Why would he tell me the truth about his dad – about his life – if he wasn’t planning to stay in mine? I don’t get it.

“Those three words,” his voice comes back into my consciousness. “Are said too much. They’re not enough.”

BOOM. More thunder. More shuddering. But this time, no laughing.

I glace across the shed in confusion; eyebrow raised, arms crossed. Reece sees me and shakes his head, his lips moving in sync with the song he’s humming. I huff and roll my eyes, sinking further into the ground.

CRACK. I let out a small yelp, before slapping a hand over my mouth. Still, no smirking, no laughing from the boy in the corner. Only pretty tunes.

“What, no laughing at my expense?” I question, capturing his attention. The humming stops.

“What?” He fires, angry but quiet. It’s as though he wants to yell, to scream, but can’t.

“The storm. You think my reactions are funny. Every time there’s been lightning or thunder you laugh or do something of the sort. Now you’re not.”

Reece takes a deep breath, most likely to calm himself. “And?”

“And? I want to know why. You’re not the type of person to hide your reactions to spare my feelings. You’re very, blunt. So I’m confused,” I confess, trying to sound more pissed off than curious. Although I can feel the anger slowly melting away.

“Rainy,” he says in a voice that has me take him seriously. “Something you’ll probably never believe is that I don’t take pleasure in your discomfort. No matter what I say or do, I hate it. But I was angry so I had to try to bug you somehow. I saw my opportunity and I took it.”

I frown. “You were angry?” I ask, eyebrows furrowed. “As in, past tense?”

BOOM. A shiver sets down my spine, not from the cold. When will this storm be over?

“You okay?” Reece asks, ignoring my question but answering it at the same time.

“Why aren’t you angry with me anymore?” I ask, ignoring his question this time.

“Answer my question and I’ll answer yours.” He’s calm and arrogant, knowing that my thirst for knowledge will be enough of a wager.

“Fine. No, I’m not okay. I hate storms, they scare me. I’m stuck here with you. I’m tired and cold. I want to go-“ I was going to say home, but then I realised I’d rather be here than at my house “-anywhere but here. So no, I’m not okay.”

I shove my hands deep into the pockets of Reece’s jumper I still wear and close my eyes. I am sick of going around in circles with him. We’re angry with each other, then we sort it out, then we’re friends, and then we’re back to being angry.

“You’re right, I’m not angry anymore,” he surrenders, stretching his legs out in front of him. He stares at his shoes.

CRACK. I flinch.

“I can’t be angry with you, Rainy, because you’re right. I am an asshole. I’ve ignored you for so long and refused to acknowledge your existence. You have every right to think nothing will change when we get out of here; to think that I will go back to pretending you don’t exist.”

BOOM.

“And I don’t know what will happen in the morning. Honestly, I don’t. We could be friends again or we could go back to how we’ve been for the past year. There are so many things that can and probably will decide that for us, but that doesn’t mean we can’t try to get along tonight.” He pauses for a minute, his eyes flicking up to me. “I don’t deserve your forgiveness, so I won’t ask for it. But I do ask you this; can you look over the horrible things I’ve done – just for tonight – so that we can have a less shitty night?”

I can’t help but think this will be a short moment of peace, before World War III resumes in this shed. It’s party of the circle of the night. How many times has something of this sort happened already tonight? How many times has one of us apologised for being angry – or for some time in our past – and then returned to being angry minutes later?

But on the other hand, do I really want to spend the night – or what’s left of it anyway – angry and bitter over the guy who broke my heart? That is not my idea of a good Saturday night.

Without saying anything, I get up and walk across to the where Reece sits. When he looks up at me with those big, brown eyes I know I’ve made the right decision.

I ungracefully lower myself to the cold, hard ground and stretch my legs out beside Reece’s. They look like legs of a dwarf beside Reece’s, making me feel small.

BOOM. I can’t help my shudder as another hit of thunder rumbles through the sky. Reece carelessly flings his arm over my shoulders and pulls me towards him, making me feel safe.

That’s one thing I have truly missed about being with Reece. We know each other so well that we don’t need to speak to communicate. Whenever thunder or lightning strike, he’ll rub circles on my back soothingly, as if to say ‘I’m here, it’s okay’. And when I lean into him or squeeze his hand, he knows I’m saying ‘I know, thanks’.

Because really, when words aren’t needed, why would you use them?

BOOM. BOOM. CRACK. BOOM.

The storm is only getting worse, with the thunder and lightning becoming all the more frequent. I feel like a cat, jumping at every sound Mother Nature has to throw at me.

“It’s just a storm,” Reece comforts me, his voice soft yet reassuring. “It’ll pass. We’re safe.”

“I-It doesn’t feel like it,” I stutter, before yelping at another crack of lightning.

“Will it help if I distract you?”

I bite my lip and shrug. It can’t hurt. Anything will be better than being as scared as a rabbit in headlights.

“Hmm. What distracts you better than anything else?” It is a rhetorical question; he already knows the answer.

BOOM. CRACK.

“Oh, that’s right!” He exclaims. He retracts his arms from around me and uses them to push himself to his feet. He stands in front of me; tall, handsome, and with a cheeky grin playing on his lips.

“Your best distraction is me.”