The Persistence of Memory

Chapter Eleven

The extremity of the New York weather never fails to irritate me. When it was hot it was sweltering and unbearable, when it was cold it was virtually uninhabitable, and apparently, when it rained it was as though we should have been building a bloody arc. It had come from nowhere. One minute it was sunny and comfortable, the next it was monsoon season in New York City.

Aidan pulls me up from the grass and lifts his blue jacket from the ground and wraps it hastily around my shoulders.

"It's not gonna do much but it's better than nothing," he mumbles as I stick my arms into the long sleeves of his jacket.

"You're wearing a T-shirt," I point out. "I have my cardigan, you should take the jacket."

He furrows his brow as he fiddles with the zip, looking up to give me a look which tells me not to be so ridiculous before pulling it all the way up. The scent of him coming from the soft, lightweight jacket is dangerously intoxicating. So is the proximity of his face to mine right now.

He moves to untuck my hair from inside the collar and then hooks his backpack onto his back and looks up at the sky. I'm not entirely sure what he's looking for? It's been raining solidly for the last few minutes.

"Yeah, it's not stopping anytime soon. We should go back," he says as he brings his eyes back to me.

"To your place?"

He nods. "It's only five blocks. How fast can you run?"

"Depends who's chasing me,"

He smiles. "Ok, I'll chase you, run."

"You know, running in the rain, gets you no less wet than walking in it. Yes, you get where you're going faster but the amount of rain hitting you is just the same."

He pretends to look shocked, then confused, before shaking his head in pretend awe. "You mean my whole fucking life I've been running in the rain like a total plonker for no reason?" Sarcastic bugger.

"Hate to break it to you," I smile, moving towards the path which I hope leads us out of the park. It's partially covered by high-reaching trees so the amount of rain battering down on us is less once we're on it.

"It's not too bad," he remarks. "I like the rain. It's purifying in a strange sort of way."

I turn to look at him. "I've actually always thought that myself. Everything looks cleaner after it's been raining." His hair is wet, making it curl slightly at the ends, and the soft light blue fabric of his t-shirt is dampened with rain making it hug his muscled looking shoulders and chest. His body was far better maintained than I'd ever noticed before.

When he turns to smile at me — that perfect white-toothed grin that I hadn't stopped thinking about the entire weekend — I feel something warm settle over my chest.

This weekend I'd found that thinking about Aidan's smile relaxed me in a way I couldn't quite understand. His voice and his eyes and his smile seemed to have their own set of healing qualities. It was bizarre. Even walking with him through a leafy park in relative silence as the rain fell above us was calming and strangely hypnotic.

When we reach the gate of the park the intensity of the rain is much heavier due to the lack of tree coverage. The people, who when we entered were squeezed into every available section of grass and scattered around the fountain, have long since dispersed.

"Fuck this, we need to run," he says turning to me.

"I'm really not a runner."

He grins and reaches out his hand, "Then hold onto me and I'll pull you along."