Elements

The unyielding tiny knocks on the roof of the car had persisted long enough that she may as well just given up and let the flood in. Her love was like the rain in that, neither had the chance to stay long (despite that unyielding persistence), before being buried into the ground, and later, sprung from the clouds anew. The engine and lights shut off once the courage to turn the key halfway sunk in, with music kept on as an excuse for the rain and her to listen to. Without it, there was just a concurrent drum-line that would hit along lacking any fluidity or rhythm. Neither knew where the solo orchestra may lead by the end of the night.

Her phone was constantly vibrating in her hand, but not due to any texts coming in, rather, due to the anxiety she was letting out. She looked at the ten digit number she had memorized over the past three years. At a number that had now lost its name, face, and purpose, all in one night. The last messages she would send to it were:

9:39 p.m. - “Hey! I’m on my break, it’s okay if you can’t bring me food, I have a granola bar in my car.” No response.

10:09 p.m. “Hey I’m going back, can’t wait to see you after work, miss you, love you.” No response.

12:05 a.m. “Hey I’m on my way over, I will see you soon… I brought you a burger and a slice of chocolate cake, hope everything’s okay…”

It had been raining most of the night, while she was stuck outside taking orders. Although her body was soaking wet and she felt gross both inside and out from lack of warmth from shelter or a partner, she still had some hope radiating from the golden brown buns, and the crisp dark lines frosted on the cake that sat, heating her lap.

He had lacked control when it came to sweets, a finger dipped in only gave his brain the right of way to eat the whole cake. Desperate to fill a hole that couldn't be filled, at least with any of the easy routes he'd try to take. So she stuck with the one slice, as to avoid later being claimed as the ‘bad guy’, for getting him a treat. It was a constant war to make him happy, or feel any sense of happiness from him, but she worked hard and almost mystically recovered from any of the scars she had gained through the relationship. Despite it all, she was still sitting outside of his place, with his slice of cake in the rain. But the warmth was slowly fading from her lap through the hopeless efforts of calls that rung their allotted rings, and a voice message that told her that he was busy doing something or someone else - with a coldness that was due to replace it.

It was a scene straight out of a movie, with a pain that fiction would do well at describing, or could have portrayed onto a screen. Only villainous mad men, she had thought, were capable of contributing such a rotting feeling to another person. But he didn’t live in a secret base, with an evil agenda to take over anything. Only a room with enough of a size for a comfortable hand-me-down queen bed, with a wooden TV tray opened 24/7 by its side to hold a bong, and a flat screen at its end facing the pillows. The largest thing in the room was a window facing straight at the street, and now her car that was nested at its curb.

Two shadows lurked and lurched back and forth every which way in the room from what she could see. Portrayed onto the window’s shades, from the orange fluorescent light pointed at them - like shadows on a cave wall from ancient, frantic, beasts. Now, she finally worked up the courage to open the car door and allow the flood in. Sadly, she was lacking an umbrella, but at that point, it didn’t matter - if only to just fit this perfectly, imperfect, situation. She didn’t want to accept any type of defeat or failure in a relationship, surely there had to be a valid reason why the woman that came before her was parked in front of his place, in front of her car. But there likely wasn’t.

Once she had reached the side door and called a last time just to make sure he wouldn’t answer, just as those molecules would collect together to form something much larger than themselves, she was ready to let it rain. He had given her a key for that door a long time ago, for all the times he got so messed up that she would need to come in and take care of him, but he hadn’t thought his plan all the way through. No man ever truly does, when considering a plan due to and full of temptations.

She creeped into a house she now felt a stranger to be in, despite the fact that this had become her home. She walked into the room, only to take one last look at man and his surroundings - in all their glory - to then turn back, drop the cake, and accept nature as an equal, and, her one true source for all. For a better life, with no more rinse and repeats.