The rain falls heavier than my heart. But not the beat in my head, nor the bass in my ears —  those things don’t fall heavy enough.

I turn up the volume, plastic earphones pulsing wave after wave of noise to drown out the hissing of a thunderstorm, the stickiness of afternoon air, and the squelching wetness of socks. The strap of a bookbag cuts into my shoulder as I tread puddles on the way home. My fingers, clawed around the end of an umbrella, are sore from bearing the weight of the wind. I don’t mind its strength and I like its stamina. The way it comes and goes. Hurtling like a train off its tracks, no care for cargo or passengers or plowed-into passersby.

An electric train, on its tracks, hurtles through. Its rails run through a pedestrian pathway at crossroads. The train is a blur of grays behind the flimsy red and white striped barrier gate and a chirping traffic light. A lone silhouette, long and gangly, is posted in front of the crossroads, his grey top now black and his sandaled feet smack in a puddle. Red string circles his wrist.

The traffic light chirps green, the barrier gate raises its arm, and he strides through, picking up his feet where metal rails cut through concrete. Drips of water fall from the rain flecked plastic bag fisted in his hand. I imagine them landing in the puddle by my feet, concentric rings splashing at the edge of my shoes.   

Groceries.

Sandwiches, flimsy white bread cut into triangles with egg salad smeared between, wrapped in cellophane. We agreed triangles tasted better than rectangles and those wads of bread would glue to the roof of our mouths.

Canned coffee, more sugar than caffeine and chugged in libraries where food and drink wasn’t allowed because we were cramming for exams that we knew we were going to fail anyways. Bags of potato chips, always crushed by the time we finally ate them. We would stuff them into our bags before class, then throw our bags in a corner the moment school let out and we raced to hit the courts. We baked to a crisp back then.

Apples, pale green and sour, just the way we liked them. The acidic tang flowing down my throat when I swiped the apple he had just bitten from his grasp and stole a bite out of it too. The bile that rushed up my throat when he didn’t swear at me like he was supposed to. When he didn’t take the apple back. When he asked if I liked him and I wish I had taken a bigger bite so I could suffocate with my favorite fruit clogged in my windpipe.

He hugged me and said he was sorry and I hugged him back and asked if we could say hi tomorrow at school and pretend this had never happened. My tears dribbled onto his shoulder.

I left the apple to rot then.

But I don’t think I ever coughed up the bite of fruit lodged in my throat.

He is on the other side of the tracks now.

“Wait!” My socks sponge out water between my toes as I run. I throw aside my umbrella and it flips over into a bowl to catch rain. The light begins to chirp again and turns red as the traffic gate lowers its arm. He turns around, water streaming through his hair and between his brows, his eyes squinting to see me through the rain.

The electric train chugs through. Grays and glass and water and salt blur my vision and my breath pounds heavy, heavier than the beat in my ears, than the rain on my head, than the heart in my chest. Water spits out where the train meets the rails. A minute never passed so long.

The traffic light chirps green, the gate is risen, the train is gone, and so is he.

The rain falls — but not heavy enough.