Rain

• Angelina Livingstone, Grade 8
• Short Story
• 2013

Her throat was dry and horse, and yet she croaked out her last few words while blood swam down her pale yellow dress, from her deeply cut wound on her lower rib cage.
"Don't you dare let yourself crumble and die away because of me."
A single tear spilt down and off of his face onto her losing eyes.
"I promise"


2 DAYS LATER

His head hung low to hide his thin pale face. The chatter and wailing around him seemed like words lost in the wind, jumbled together with no meaning behind the "I'm sorry for your loss" and "she will forever be in our hearts" as the people shuffled by awkwardly after not being acknowledged.
One, two, four tears streamed down his face and onto the dying roses that he held in his hand. The same bouquet he had given to Elle the night she was murdered. The night she died.
A shaky breath exhaled through his gritted teeth. His shoulders shook with violent sobs and he cracked.
Standing up quickly he threw the roses on the floor and screamed in anger. Thrashing his arms about his continued to yell, tears fell off of his cheeks, coming faster than water does off of the edge of a cliff and into a water fall. Stomping angrily on the roses he ignored the horrified looks of people who had come to pay their respect to the girl who was stolen away of her many years of life.
"You promised!" He yelled as he stopped and fell to the ground, hands clutching his hair in pain and confusion.
"You promised you'd never leave!"
Two men carried him out and tried to calm him down, explaining how they knew what he was going through. Like they knew what it was like to have your true love taken away at 17 years of age. She was too young. And for the 1000th time he begged god to replace Elle's rotting corpse with his own, to let her take one more breath to be followed by another, forever until she was old and grey.
The men eventually left him on the green grass to calm down.
Black clouds spread out and enveloped the blue sky. Rain pelted down and Hugo looked up, he let the water sting his skin and he climbed onto his trembling legs. And for seemed like centuries his cracked lips parted and he smiled. Finally the earth realised its great loss. Finally the sun had hidden and the rain had started. The sky cried and Hugo welcomed it.
"Yes!" He cried and shook uncontrollably.
Then whispering softly,
"Yes"