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The sky, bedarkened and murky with its ashen clouds obscuring the sunlight, wept. It wept showers sluicing down in a shining silver cascade of raindrops, as if God suddenly decided to recreate his cataclysm, but this time there was no Noah-Ark to mark the end. A myriad of little suicidal drummers hammered the sidewalk in an uncoordinated pattern of beats, plinking off the enlarging puddles and creating the iconic white noise of nature. The concrete floor was their stage for a show she was never welcomed to.
Jennifer Wakeman and the rain, two immortal enemies that wanted nothing to do with each other.
The streets were almost deserted, save for the occasional passerby with their contrastingly colorful umbrella, or the inattentive vehicle disturbing the perfect mirrors on the asphalt floor, pushing small waves into the sidewalk, and sullying it with mud.
She took shelter under the school’s overhang, waiting for the Amazonian shower to pass before she could head home as well. Much like the rest of the building, the front yard was already vacant of students, and she was left alone, staring at the vital-for-life liquid rightfully stain everything in its way, drip off of tree leaves, sprinkle on refreshed grass, and accumulate into little streams that shone underneath cars’ headlights.
Vital for life, it was. Just not to her.
After all, she wasn’t a girl sheltering from the rain in fear her newly styled hair would get ruined, neither did she care if soil dirtied her shoes. She was a crime-fighting robot, a metallic life-form unneeding water.
Still… She couldn’t go for a walk without rusting in the rain.
She heard a subtle squeak. The front door opened, and she turned around to inspect the identity of the other soul that had decided to join her uninvited.
Uninvited, he had always been.
He slowly, carefully closed the door behind him, as if afraid the tiniest sound would draw unwanted attention to himself. This short boy of meager, slight built and pasty complexion was nothing that caught the eye, but still somehow provoked more trouble than allowed.
She returned the gleeful beam that appeared on his face with a discouraged one of her own.
”Oh! Jenny, you’re still here,” he greeted, almost skipping as he crossed the few yards that separated them. A worn-out umbrella in his hand told her he anticipated the weather. “You didn’t walk home with Brad?”
“He said he had to go home early,” she replied, shrugging. “And you know I can’t walk in the rain.”
It was too predictable, as he looked like he hardly contained his excitement and offered: “can I walk you home then?”
A sad smile curved her lips. “No, I’ll wait for it to pass.”
“Awe, please?” he said with a pout as his hands joined in a puppy dog plea. “I got an umbrella.”
“I can see you have an umbrella. I am not…” she paused, her facial expression softening and her obstinacy broke when he fake sniffed, silently begging her with beseeching eyes to accept his humble request. She breathed out in an almost human-like sigh and gave up. “Okay, fine, you can walk me home.”
“Yay!” he exclaimed loudly before composing himself. The bright smile, however, refused to budge from his pale, freckled face as he tried to fake a suave persona. “I mean… that would be a pleasure, Jennifer.”
Jenny suppressed a laugh, unable to decide which was more ridiculous; his most recent line or him trying to graciously open the umbrella and failing miserably, as the old thing got stuck midway through. He gave it a rough shake, causing it to open not so gently on his face.
He raised the umbrella above his head, which ended up hitting Jenny’s face. The metallic bit of its structure poked her eye, and despite her inability to feel physical pain, she still closed her eyelid tightly and complained: “Ouch! Sheldon, careful with that!”
“Sorry!” Sheldon apologized almost instantly, raising his arm higher, so the umbrella covered her head as well. It was the tiniest details he often failed to consider when planning his interactions with his beloved, and today he obliviated a not-so-tiny detail; his dearest, idolized hero stood a towering one foot taller than him, and he had to keep his arm uncomfortably stretched to accommodate her height.
They stepped out from the school’s grounds. Raindrops bounced off the umbrella above their heads and dripped down the metallics bits in a soothing, harmonical pattern. The sound almost drowned Sheldon’s soft-spoken voice when he asked: “why aren’t you water-proof yet?”
She wanted to shoot him with an offended glare, but the question looked innocent and genuine enough to stop her. “Mom said a coating would interfere with my transformation.”
“We can still find another way.”
Jenny shrugged. “I won’t stop you from trying.”
“I like a challenge,” he exclaimed, the excitement translating into body language and he pulled the umbrella down, almost pocking it into Jenny’s pigtails. He was about to apologize again when he felt cold, metallic fingers briefly brush his hand and force the umbrella out of his grip.
“Alright, that’s enough, I’m carrying this,” she said, noting that the water dripped into his left shoulder, soaking the fabric of the oversized, marron hoodie he so favored to constantly wear. “You’re doing a bad job at this,” she continued when he gave her a betrayed look, his arm still outstretched from where he was holding the umbrella, but then he slowly lowered it once she added: “besides, you’re getting wet.”
“Well, I wanted to make sure you stayed dry.”
Now, Jenny was a work of technological wonder, and without the need of one, she lived and felt and talked and loved with no heart to beat in her chest, or to melt at this sweet boy’s comment. “Ah, Sheldon, you really don’t-”
Her sentence was cut short when a near gale blow of wind bent the umbrella backward, exposing the two teens to the weeping sky. She unsuccessfully tried to fix it before offering it to the amateur inventor, who, by sheer bad luck, failed to hold into it as a second gust of strong breeze sent it flying away, ruffling his messy obsidian hair and tearing tree leaves along the way. “Awe… what a shame!”
Jenny couldn’t feel the rain hitting her tough outer shell, but the plinking was enough of an indicator of how heavy the rain was. She was ready to apologize and fly back home by herself when Sheldon took off his hoodie and awkwardly offered it to her. The blush and timid smile killed off the gentleman persona he so obviously tried to achieve as he said: “here, you’ll get wet.”
It was out of a classic cliché, straight from a rom-com, but what part of their relationship wasn’t a classic cliché in its own unforced extempore and awkward interacting?
An unplanned smile crept to her face as she shook her hands in refusal. “I can’t wear that, and you’ll get wet too.”
“Why not?” he asked with a quizzical look on his face. “And it’s not me who’ll get rust up their joints!”
“Because,” she suppressed a laugh, “it’s too small,” she added, then fake cleared her throat. “And you’ll get sick.”
“Come on! You’ll just make me clean off the rust later!” he complained, still offering the piece of clothing.
Still not finding any use for it, she accepted out of consideration for his feelings and wore the hoodie over her shoulders. Its fabric covered her torso and arms.
Sheldon let out a satisfied huff of air and resumed walking, and Jenny briefly wondered if he would go home and scratch sharing clothes with the love of his life off of the bucket list.
The rain continued to pour heavily, threatening to overflow Tremorton’s dam and ruin her circuits, but her companion had no care in the world as he went on and on about some RPG game he liked while wildly gesturing with his hands and making exaggerated noises to describe characters and events. A childlike, cheerful smile stretched across his face through it all.
For once, she didn’t find the monologue irritating, though she paid little attention to it. His voice drowned in the background and got mixed in with the rest of nature's white noise. The piece of borrowed clothing on her shoulders stuck to her metallic body as it failed to absorb any more water, but she didn’t notice it. Her gaze, instead, was intently fixed on Sheldon.
His hair was already dripping and sticking to his face. The thin fabric of his shirt clung to his flesh to conceal almost nothing of his lanky body. It could only be compared to a teenage girl’s daydream scenario of her crush taking her on a romantic walk in the rain, except this was just her timid, conventionally unattractive friend, rambling about geeky things she already lost track of.
The fresh, muddy smell of the rain was pleasant to her scent receptors, soothing even, but she still wished she could draw in a deep breath of the shilled air and feel its freshness. Though the only effect of the cool breeze she could observe was the occasional shiver running through Sheldon’s body every time the wind blew.
“You’ll catch a cold,” she muttered, cutting his speech short mid-story.
“I am not cold,” he denied, deliberately stepping into a puddle. The black converse hit the water with a splash. He then straightened his stance and said: “ you’ll get rusty!”
Jenny laughed and continued walking, her house already within eyeshot. “I’ll have you clean it off, but who’ll take care of you if you get sick?”
“If rust is the human equivalent of a cold,” said Sheldon. A hand carefully stroking an imaginary beard, “then me cleaning it off is like taking care of you while sick!”
“No,” Jenny deadpanned, already guessing where the conversation was going. “Being sick involves bed rest and not being able to move and-”
“Aha, see? Not being able to move. Same thing.”
“So?”
“So…” he trailed off, already imagining nurse Jenny spoon feeding him homemade chicken soup. “You’ll have to be the one taking care of me.” He shrugged. “Ya know, return the favor.”
Jenny crossed her arms. “You know this whole walk me home thing was your idea?”
Sheldon mirrored her body language and improvised a smug grin. “The ultimate plan.”
The smile vanished when a sudden stream of water washed over him, and he raised his arms to shield his face. Jenny giggled, retracting the blades she used to push water from a nearby puddle. In a feeble attempt at revenge, Sheldon kicked the water to spray her, unintentionally staining her polished coating with mud.
“Sorry, I-”
His sentence was cut short once a ball of mud hit his face, sending the unsuspecting boy to the ground. He propped himself on his bony elbows, grass blades pocking his skin in contrast to the soft soil underneath him. Wiping the dirt from his face, he said: “so you wanna play like this?”
Jenny continued to giggle, confident his threats were empty. Her laughter was sweet music to his ears, but alas, he needed to cut it short. He jumped toward her, using his whole body weight and momentum to push her into the muddy ground.
Almost unbelievably, his attempt was successful, as they both fell on the grass with a thick splash. He rolled on his back to lie beside her, both loudly laughing at the childish little fight, as if they were the only two souls in the world.
“Mom would go crazy if she saw this,” Jenny said, the laugh subsiding into a giggle as she turned her head to stare at Sheldon, who still stared at the grey sky. A grin still plastered on his face, revealing imperfect teeth and painting his normally pale complexion with a rosy, lively shade. The traces of dirt, however, obscured the dispersed freckles, much to her disappointment.
He finally looked at her through the short blades of grass they lay on. “That’s nothing. I think I got mud in my shoes.”
She stood up and offered a hand, which he accepted without a second thought, or a first, for that matter, seeing as he was too happy just to hold her hand for the brief moment.
The pair walked the rest of the block to her house, scrapping off dirt in the meantime, and for the first time in her life, Jenny felt disappointed the short walk ended so early, almost prematurely.
She looked at the boy who somehow made her first walk in the rain enjoyable, the smile never fading as she handed him back his hoodie. “Thanks, Sheldon.”
“Ah, don’t mention it,” he responded, brushing the back of his head shyly. “I had fun.”
“Me too,” she said, cupping his face with both hands and effortlessly drawing him closer to plant a kiss on the soft skin of his cheek. “See you later!” she bade goodbye as she walked back to her house, leaving the boy stunned and frozen in his place. His hand moved upward to brush the spot where her soft, cool lips were just a moment ago. A small smile formed as he robotically waved back at her.
Jenny briefly waved back before partially closing the door, watching him through the small crack she left open. She stifled a laugh when he dramatically shook his head back into reality, did a small victorious jump, and ran home.