When in Paris

(4) Four

Chapter 4

Cathreese rubbed her eyes sleepily as she wandered into her aunt’s kitchen the next morning. Her bare feet were cool on the stone floor and her blonde curls were piled in a tangled mess on the top of her head. Morning wasn’t exactly her favorite time of the day.

“Hi honey. Did you sleep all right?” Aunt Olivia was sitting at the table with her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea.

“Yes, thank you.” Cathreese dropped into a paint dabbled chair as she yawned. In the morning light, the kitchen was even homier than it had appeared the day before. Everything had drips of paint all over it, do to the fact that her aunt was an artist, and it made the room feel used and welcoming. Cathreese thought back to the kitchen in her home in Seattle, where it was all stainless steel and granite. This was so much nicer.

“Would you like some tea?”

“No thanks, I’m fine.” Cathreese was looking out the window above the sink, where she could see raindrops running in rivers down the glass.

“Are you hungry?”

“No, I’m good. I’m just going to go outside if that’s all right?”

Her aunt smiled knowingly, “That’s fine honey.”

Cathreese crossed the kitchen and headed out the back door, tilting her face back to greet the dancing drops. The cold rain ran down her cheeks, damping her hair and causing her purple shirt to cling to her body. Cathreese stared spinning, keeping her head thrown back and opening her arms to embrace the crying London sky. The grass was slippery underneath her toes and her hair began to tumble down her shoulders as the rain poured down harder. Soon enough Cathreese was soaked to the skin, drenched completely through. She had never felt more alive.

As soon as she took a shower she was going to get on her laptop and IM Nathan. The weather had been a sign, every cloud in the sky reminding her of the boy whose smile could light up a room. So what if it rained all the time in Paris and there were always clouds, she was still going to pretend that the gray masses above her head were telling her to let Nathan in.

When she turned to head back inside she pinched a blooming red rose off its stem, bringing the flower to her nose as her fingers nimbly avoided the thorns. Clouds made rain and rain brought the gorgeous flowers to life. Without a cloud there could be no rose.

Cathreese cupped the rose in her palms, her eyes drinking in the beauty of the delicate form of life clasped in her hands. A few drops of rain clung to the red petals and more water pooled in the center of the flower. Cathreese tilted the flower and she was able to see the low hanging gray clouds reflected in the silvery drops. Seeing the rose and the clouds together like that, as if they were one, finalized her decision.

Forget what she had told Phoebe, Cathreese want nothing more than to get lost in Nathan’s perfect blue eyes.