Rain and Olive

rain//1

My mother named me Rain after her high school sweetheart. He was the best man, she told me, the greatest who has ever lived. His life was cut short. A car accident took his life before my mother even knew of my existence. The day of his funeral she took the pregnancy test and decided on my name.

I wonder often why Olive's parents choose to name him Olive. I never had the chance to ask him before we broke up. Or I never thought to ask the question. I should had asked him.

My mother has a deep belief in souls. She told me she knew her and Rain were two souls that once came together could never completely separate. Her theory includes what she likes to call an invisible tether between her and him. No matter how far they are apart the tether cannot break. Mother often explains that souls do not understand time or distance, but only understand what it feels like to long for another. Souls can feel the absence of another, however cannot understand the amount of time spent apart and therefore presents the feeling of missing.

I fully understand the feeling of missing. I miss Olive. Not all the time. Some days I don't even think about him. But, other days my soul must awake to find the absence of his soul to mine continues for I feel a deep and painful feeling of missing. I know, however, Olive's soul does not share the depth of separation. Therefore, our souls are not meant to be.

Olive and I live separate lives now. It doesn't matter though. A part of me understands that the fact that a guy like him exists at all should be enough. Olive is good. Olive is safe. Olive used to be mine.

When my souls feels an excess amount of missing, I like to look out my window at the city lights of New York. I know he's right down the street, around the corner and three blocks down. A part of me hopes he is looking at the lights too.

Tonight it is raining. Ironic right? Olive used to call me Rainy Day. He used to say stop being a Rainy Day or Rainy Day go away. So, on nights such as this I find myself at the window. Glancing and searching for his eyes through the city lights.

My mother told me that in another life time Olive and I would had lasted. She said we were never meant to break up and that if we hadn't made a few too many mistakes we would had been perfect. I think she's just trying to be nice though. If Olive believed the same he wouldn't have gotten a girlfriend a month after we broke up. Or at least he wouldn't have stopped talking to me completely.

I shifted in the window seat in my room to grab the book I was currently reading. As I flipped open to the page I was on, my phone dinged. Surprised someone would text me at two in the morning I went to where my phone was charging to see who it was.

I remember when Olive and I first broke up I begged to a superior being for him and I to at least remain friends. Olive and I did talk and attempt to be friends, but it left both of us more broken than before. We stopped talking completely in hope of fixing our selves. Then he got a girlfriend and that was that.

Now, I checked my phone to see a text from Olive. It simply said 'hi Rain'. He even used my name. I glanced out the window and took a deep breath before texting back 'hi Olive'. My heart raced and I lay down my phone face down. Part of me didn't want to know what he was going to say next. The part of me that was still angry at him for all that had taken place came alive and I hid my face in a pillow.

The honking of horns brought my eyes to my window again. A car was going down the street the wrong way. Other cars honked and swerved but the car continued to go the wrong way. Just another night in New York City.

I reached to my hair and bought it into a braid. The weather had made it slightly frizzy. Rain, my father, had red hair like I do. I've seen a picture of him. We have the same nose, same green eyes, same hair. It's strange to know I share so much with a man I never knew.

Olive responded, 'we should talk. It's raining out you love rainy nights. we should catch up.'

Olive looks like his mother. They both share darker, dirty blonde hair. In some lighting it looks dark brown and in others it looks like a lighter dirty blonde. It often has curls that won't lay the right way. He is about two percent Asian which you can tell by his eyes. He shares his mother's hazel eyes. In height he's not much taller than me. Or at least he wasn't. It's been months since I've seen him; he might have grown.

I replied to him, 'I used to love rainy nights. why catch up now?'

Cracks of lightning were barely visible over the tall buildings of the city. The people I could see on the streets below all carried umbrellas. It was a beautiful sight to see all the colors of umbrellas people held close.

Olive texted, 'we were best friends once. who says we can't be that again. please let me call you.'

I often think that if I was someone else, if I had a different name. I would find my way to Olive. He would love me the way he used to love the other me. We would be perfect because he was the guy I was looking for all along.

I lay on my window seat and stared to the celling. My dark room maybe had the answers I needed and I whispered to the air, "What should I do now?"

Olive texted again, 'I'm going to call you anyway. you know how persistent I am.'

My phone began to ring. I had never changed his ringtone. It's Mia & Sebastian's Theme from La La Land. We had always planned to watch the movie together, but it never worked out. He had changed his ringtone to the theme because it always made me smile.

I answered it, "Hello?"

"Hi, how are you? No, just...ugh I don't know what to say to you," Olive sounded frustrated and slightly sad. "I miss you, Rain."

"I miss you too," I whispered and closed my eyes. I tried to memorize the fact that he did in fact miss me.

"Okay then let's be friends again. Like real friends not fake friends okay?" He sounded very sincere.

"Okay... just you have to keep it. You can't say let's be friends and then disappear."

"I'll never disappear. In my mind we were always friends."

"Well, in my mind we weren't."

"Yes, I know. It's my fault. I'm sorry. I'm here now."

"Okay."

"Okay."

"Do you still chew your finger nails? I swear I can hear it over the phone."

And just like that our souls once again were connected.