Rainy Day by A. S. Kelly

Table of Content

• 1. “Head trauma and amnesia and—the fact that she has removed part of her past means that after two years the doctors think it’s impossible that it will come back to her now.”
• 2. It’s Friday night, and like every weekend in a little while people will be out spending every last cent of their salary. I glance at my watch and realize that it’s already 2.00 p.m. and I’m running late for opening. I grab my takeaway coffee cup, put the book I was reading in my bag, and hurry out of the coffee house.
• 3. You see I started doing this three months ago, when I first set foot back in Ireland. I know all of her habits, her schedule, her favorite places. I know what time she starts work and what time she gets off. I know when her break is, what she eats and how she prefers her coffee. I even know the title of the book she’s reading and I went out and got myself a copy.
• 4. I smile at him because it’s not necessary for me to respond. Then I get started setting the chairs up around the tables before sitting down on a bar stool behind the counter, and pulling out a book I’ve been working on before the first customers show up.
• 5. They told me that two years ago I was able to read a whole book in a single night, but now that seems entirely impossible. I’m slow and I have a hard time concentrating on the words. I frequently have to go back and read the same passage at least two or three times before my mind really understands its significance. I don’t get downhearted about it, I just go on with my reading. Every day I am regaled with a new life where I can immerse myself, lose myself or find a part of myself, a part that was lost a long, long time ago.
• 6. By way of answering, he comes close to me, takes the book out of my hands. He looks at the title, his mouth makes a frown and his brow furls. I know what he’s thinking. I’ve been reading the same book for at least two weeks.
• 7. I grab my book and slam it shut and put it away under the counter. I get up and go in back, with the excuse that I have to tally up the bar. I close the door and lean up against it and then slide down to the floor.
• 8. Before I’m able to cross, someone grabs my shoulder, forcing me to turn around abruptly. Afraid and paralyzed, I let myself be squeezed, tightly, so tightly that I feel some cracking of my bones in his arms, but I don’t care. I could break in two, falling to the ground like a sack of broken bones, and I wouldn’t care at all, because now I feel his heat, through his sweatshirt, through my jacket, through my skin, my bones and my organs. His heat arrives everywhere, it brushes against every part of me, even the most hidden part. It wraps me up in it, it relaxes me and reassures me. I rest my head on his shoulder and feel his heart beating like crazy just like mine. I can hardly believe it.
• 9. He needs to be part of something.
• 10. He needs to be a part of me.
• 11. Rain is splendid, more so than I remembered. It’s true, she’s not the same person, but what does that matter? People change continuously, it’s part of the growing process. You have to accept that she’s different, of course, but that doesn’t mean I could ever love her any less.
• 12. “That’s his sister,” Neil told me. “Isn’t she beautiful?” His eyes were as transparent as his soul. He was always as open as a book with me, my family, everyone. It didn’t take long at all for him to win her over, he knew how to do it, I have to admit. He was sweet, attentive, affectionate. He wasn’t interested in other women, there was only one he wanted, for himself, forever. He had clear ideas right away.
• 13. “I don’t want to go home,” I say out of the blue without over-thinking it—because that’s what I feel in this moment. I don’t want to go away from him. I want to continue to feel like this, part of something.
• 14. Part of him.
• 15. I’m afraid she’s going to tell him the truth and that Neil will hate me for the rest of his life, that the band will fall apart and our lives will be in a million pieces.
• 16. I put aside my pain, I put aside the family, I put apart myself.
• 17. I smile while I read my notes about him. Liam is part of me. He came in like the rain and continues to be present, giving me something I never thought possible for me. Liam is part of my life, and he has been since the first time I met him, from the first time he held me in his strong, sure arms, saving me from a moving motorcycle. And every day he continues to be my savior. To save me, even if he doesn’t realize it.
• 18. Rain said Neil’s name. We don’t know what else she may have remembered. She’s closed up in herself, wracked with confusion and aware that she’s been intentionally kept in the dark about part of her life.
• 19. “She’s one of a kind, Aaron. She is infinitely sweet, sensitive—she has an immense heart and I would have done anything to have had even a little part of it. I remember her with those kids at school during the shows where she made everyone participate.”
• 20. “Do you really think I didn’t realize, or that the others didn’t notice? Your love for her was everywhere. It was in your hands when you angrily struck your chords. It was in your eyes when she came into the basement to bring us something to drink and you, like an idiot, couldn’t stop looking at her. It was in all of the pints you downed in ten years trying to forget and drown your feelings. It was in every stupid, fucking, long, sad ‘brotherly’ hug you gave her—it was in every single part of you.”
• 21. And Liam—he’s just come into my life, I’m not ready to lose him. Not now, not yet. My biggest fear is though, that I never will be sure of him, because even though I’ve only known him for a short while and things are complicated, I know that he’s a part of something marvelous, a part of me and my world, my nothingness which transformed into everything since he’s been with me.
• 22. I feel everything. I feel him on my skin and in my heart, as if it had always been there, as if it were something that has always been a part of me.
• 23. I hear his words that reassure me, that tell me I’ll never be alone, because I’m part of the family, his family.
• 24. Liam is part of me, not from today, not for a month and not since our first meeting.
• 25. Liam has been part of my life, and even if I don’t know exactly for how long, I feel it, his constant presence, impressed on my heart, even if my mind isn’t able to connect all of the events, actions, situations.
• 26. Liam falls asleep at dawn, our bodies entwined, our legs braided together, my head on his chest. And as I slide from his embrace and his love, I know that whatever happens he will always be a part of me.
• 27. He will always be a part of me.
• 28. The fact is that music is part of me and my life, but I’m not sure if it is in this sense. I wasn’t made for the stage, I’m not made for the public and managers and contracts. I’d just like to play with the guys like we used to, just for an hour to ward off the sensation that there was no reason to stay here.
• 29. “I’d like to be a part of everything. I’d like to be part of the family.”