Thank the Rain – Chapter 1

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It started off innocently enough.  I was driving from my mother’s house to get back to where I live so I could get ready for work.  I stopped at the light coming out of her neighborhood and saw a girl standing in the rain at the bus stop.  It was “my” bus stop – the same one I had stood at for four years of High School.The girl had no umbrella and the rain was steadily soaking her.  She stood with her head down, her straight dark hair hanging down around her face and dripping.  She was in a jean jacket, the school’s mandatory white top and navy skirt and hunched over a backpack.  I immediately felt bad that she was having to stand in the rather cold rain.Without thinking (how awkward it would be to have a strange adult in a car suddenly talk to a High School girl at a bus stop?), I put down the window on the passenger side and called to her.“Excuse me!” I yelled.  The girl looked up halfway.  I could just make out her eyes under her forehead and surrounded by her bedraggled wet hair.  The look was suspicious, but I was oblivious at this point and continued.“Do you need a ride?  Get out of the rain?” I offered, sincerely just thinking of trying to get her out of the cold rain.  I saw her hesitate.  It wasn’t an immediate rejection, so I tried to persuade her.  And everything I said was true.“I go right by the High School on the way to work.  I can drop you off.”  She looked left and right, but I wasn’t sure if she was checking for threats or looking for help.  My light turned green, but fortunately I didn’t have anyone behind me.  It was very early.  I never did understand why our High School started and let out so early compared with most other schools.“You’re perfectly safe, I went to the same High School.”  I thought I saw a fleeting flash of a quirky smile on her face.“I know,” she said, “You were a senior when I was a first year.”  Having apparently made up her mind, she looked around again quickly and dashed for the door.  I reached over and pushed it open for her.  She hurriedly got in and slammed the door as I put the window back up.  She didn’t look at me, just kept her head down even as she mumbled “Thanks.”“No problem,” I said, for some reason fascinated by the droplets that slowly made their way down the strands of her hair to drip on her legs and skirt.  I pulled my eyes away and drove.  I reached for the climate controls.“Here,” I said, “let me turn the heat up.  You must be freezing.”  She didn’t say anything, but I noticed she put her hands up to the vents to capture the heat that was now streaming from them.  We drove on in silence for a long time, the interior eventually warming up to enough of a comfortable level that she returned to clutching her backpack again.She seemed very nervous and I wasn’t entirely oblivious as to why.  She did, after all, get in a stranger’s car.  One of the things parents are incessantly telling their kids not to do.  So, I did what I could to set her at ease, driving the obvious main route to the school among many other cars, bright streetlights, etc.  The school was only another five or ten minutes ahead and yet she still didn’t seem to be relaxing at all.  I gave a mental shrug.“I used to use that same bus stop,” I said, somewhat lamely at one point.  “Back when I went to your school.”  My voice tapered off as I realized how stupid I sounded.  She’d already admitted she recognized me from school.  And then it clicked.  If she was a first year during my last year, then… this was the young girl that stood with me and the others at that stop during my last year.I had never talked to that girl, beyond a quiet greeting of “Hey”, even when I would get there and she was the only one there.  But I remembered her being there practically every day.  She had been very young and, being a senior, it had seemed like she was from another planet we were Anadolu yakası escort bayan so far apart in ages.  Yet, now, three years later, a job, a car, a place of my own, the gap somehow seemed different.As I turned into the school entrance, she glanced over at me once quickly.  I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I took her right up to the door I used to enter when I came to school years ago. “There you go,” I said cheerfully, “timely, if not dry.”  I was rewarded with a fleeting smile and a quick glance as she opened the door.  She was up and out of the car quickly and turned in preparation for closing the door and our eyes finally met for once.  I smiled.“Thanks for the company.  Driving to work is usually boring all alone.”  She nodded her head, seeming a little confused.  But then she clearly remembered her manners.“Thank you for driving me to school,” she said, shyly.  I grinned and gestured vaguely out the windshield.“Thank the rain,” I said jovially, “I hate to see a damsel in distress.”  Her answering quiet giggle was like music.She shut the car door and turned to walk briskly through the continuing rain to enter the school.  I pulled away from the curb and continued home to get ready for work.  I found myself thinking about her, and how sad and uncomfortable she seemed.  It bothered me that I made her uncomfortable, when all I was trying to do was help.  But the more I thought about her, the more I had to face the fact that if it had been a guy, I never would have stopped to offer.Did that make me a chauvinist?  Sexist?  Chivalrous?  I wanted to believe the latter, but I still hadn’t decided when the time came for me to go to work.I’d been working for three years at my current job – my first job after High School.  The original plan had been to work for a year or so, get some money together, and start going to the local college as well.  Plans, as they say, are well made and intended, but rarely untroubled by reality.  My plans had been no exception.  Not long after I had gotten the job – as a clerk in the mail room of a pretty decent sized company – my Grandmother had passed away.  My Grandfather had died in the war many years before.  I had never known my Grandfather on that side of the family. But my Grandmother – on my mother’s side – had passed and left me a Trust.  The purpose was to give me an education if I wanted it.  And, I had thought I did.  But a lot of things happened all at once two years ago.  The passing of my Grandmother, the windfall from her generosity, and a promotion at work that had been totally unexpected.  I had originally intended to go to school and get at least a bachelor’s degree, and probably go on to a master’s.  But the promotion complicated things.I had been working very hard at my job, proving that I had the right attitudes and work ethic to be a valuable employee.  My efforts had not been in vain.  My boss, Geena, was the assistant manager of the mailroom, and her boss, Randy, was both manager of the mailroom and a nephew of the owners.  Atypically, I liked both of them – they were good people that appreciated their employees, yet didn’t tolerate slackers, ass-kissers, or excuses. The windfall from my Grandmother was a wonderful thing, and I loved her for the fact that she thought of me.  But I was promoted early thanks to my efforts to be a good worker and there was a promise of more to come.  And Geena and Randy were friends as well.  For the first time I felt like I belonged somewhere.  I was hesitant to risk that by trying to balance school and work at the same time.So a little more than three years after graduation, I had a nice nearly-new car, a two bedroom apartment to myself, and was able to save a significant amount that I wouldn’t have to use for school after all.  All of which Escort Kurtköy made me feel pretty good about the future.  Until I decided on a whim to pick up a High School girl looking half drowned at the bus stop near my mother’s house.  And I couldn’t stop thinking about her.#The next week, I made my traditional early Friday morning run over to check on my mother, share a cup of coffee, and catch up with her.  I often went over during the weekends to help with cleaning and maintenance issues as well, but the Friday visits sort of evolved on their own as a purely social visit.  As I was leaving, there were flashes of lightning on the horizon and the air had that heavy moisture smell that happens before a storm.  I had the windows down since the air felt so good.  I figured I could put them up in time if the rain came through quicker than I expected.I smiled to myself when I pulled up to the bus stop at Mom’s neighborhood entrance and saw the same girl standing there.  Since it wasn’t raining, and it was warmer than it had been last week, she was standing in just her white blouse, navy skirt, white knee socks and sneakers.  The familiar backpack was casually slung over one shoulder this time and her hair was pulled back in a ponytail.  She looked at me as I rolled to a stop at the light and there was a slight smile on her face.  I rolled down the window.“Care for a ride?” I said cheerfully and gestured to the west, “Looks like more rain might be coming.”  Her smile was lopsided, giving her a somewhat saucy look, but she started walking to the car before I’d even finished asking.  She opened the car door and sort of fell into the seat.  She shut the door and fastened her seatbelt.“Thanks,” she said quietly, looking forward and clutching her backpack in her lap.  The light changed and I started off.  I glanced at her briefly.  She certainly looked better than the last time I had seen her – less drowned. “I didn’t think to ask your name last time,” I said with a smile.  She looked at me for a long moment and then looked forward again.“Leslie,” she said simply.  I nodded as if this told me something more profound than just how to refer to her.  I told her my name and tried to puzzle out why I wanted to put her at ease so much and how to do it.  I decided to just wing it and be honest.“I appreciate your trust, you know,” I said, sincerely.  “I know it’s not an easy thing to do.  Especially these days.”  She gave me a smile that was less sarcastic than the first one had been.  Her gaze turned out the windshield almost immediately again nonetheless.“Thank the rain again,” she said, making a show of looking out the windshield at the flashing storm on the horizon.  “I have a feeling I would have been soaked before long.  So… thanks.  Again.”  I smiled and said she was more than welcome.We still didn’t seem to get much chance to talk during the drive.  I tried to start a conversation a couple times, but she fended off the attempts with simple yes or no responses, or in a few cases, a shrug.  Even so, the drive passed in companionable comfort and soon I was pulling up to the High School doors again.  This time she turned to me before she got out.“Look.  I do appreciate the rides,” she said with sincerity and a hand resting casually on my forearm.  “It’s just… if my Mom knew, she’d have a fit and I’d probably get grounded for life.”  What she said sounded humorous, and she was trying to make it seem so, but I saw a genuine fear in her eyes briefly that concerned me.  But her hand on my arm made my mouth develop a mind of it’s own.“We’ll just have to make sure she doesn’t find out then,” I said with the confidence of youthful hormones.  She gave me a classic double-take, smiled, and sort of snorted in mild derision.  With that she got out of the car and I lamented Maltepe escort the loss of her hand on my arm far more than I would have expected.“Thanks for the ride.  I’ll see you around.”  Having said that, she turned and walked into the school.  I couldn’t help but watch the wonderful way her skirt bounced on her rear as she did so.  Or how sexy her legs looked, at least the portions I could see exposed below the skirt and above the tops of her socks.I made the rest of my drive to my apartment with a tent in my pants. #I was running a little later than usual the next week, so Leslie wasn’t at the bus stop when I came out of my mother’s neighborhood.  I found myself far more disappointed than I expected.  But I went about my work week only partially aware of how often I thought about her, wondering what classes she was in, how she liked school, etc.The following week it was raining, and Leslie was standing at the bus stop, hunched over her backpack, soaked again.  When I pulled over, she didn’t even hesitate, but came trotting to the car obviously eager to get out of the rain.  As she flopped into he seat I couldn’t help notice her white blouse had become translucent with the rain, and her white lacy bra was clearly on display.  Along with nipples made very cold by the soaking.  She looked at me and smiled, apparently unaware of the show she was providing.“Have you ever heard of an umbrella?”  I asked in good humor.  She rolled her eyes, which I found startlingly attractive for some reason.“Yes, Captain Obvious,” she said with a frown of exasperation, but then she smiled and ticked up fingers at each of her points.  “One, it wasn’t raining when I left the house.  Two, the umbrella I do have is in my locker at school.  And, three, if I had used an umbrella you wouldn’t have such a tantalizing view of my bra, now would you?”  Oops.  Somehow, she had caught me looking.  I grimaced good naturedly and put my hands up in defense.“I admit guilt and throw myself on the court’s mercy.” I said with contrition.  “Perhaps I can earn forgiveness with this.” I reached in the back seat and brought a big fluffy towel forward and offered it to her.  She smiled and grabbed it, pressing her face into it and savoring the drying softness.“Bless you.” Her muffled voice came from the towel.  “You are forgiven your sins. Today anyway.”  Her giggle, even muffled by the towel, made me smile in return as I drove.Unlike the last two trips, she seemed more animated and wanting to talk.  She told me about her classes and the one friend, Melanie, that she had at school.  How disappointed she was that her senior year seemed destined to be classes that she didn’t share with her friend.  I asked about her parents and noticed that she changed the subject quickly.  A little tickle of alarm went through my mind, but she soon distracted me by wiping at her shirt with the towel, trying to soak up excess moisture, which made delightful motions happen.  She seemed, this time, unaware of my looking. By the time we had gotten to school, she had the towel wrapped around her shoulders.  It was raining even harder out and I suggested she use it over her head while she dashed to the doors.  She smiled and promised she’d give it back next time she saw me.  My stomach did a little flip of joy at her assumption that we’d see each to her again, but I suppose it only made sense.  She thanked me again and seemed ready to jump out when she hesitated.  Then she turned back, kissed me on the cheek and suddenly made a dash out the door.  Her giggling was the last thing I heard before the door slammed.I drove to work totally unaware that I was smiling like an idiot. #The next week, Leslie was at the bus stop, but her body language seemed off as I pulled up.  The weather was fine, but she was sort of hunched over as if it were raining.  The closer I got the more I saw things weren’t right.  Her hair wasn’t brushed, she was staring down at the ground, her blouse was sort of pulled to the side and disheveled, the backpack was hanging from one hand by the strap and dragging on the ground.  A little fist of cold was forming in my stomach as I pulled over to her.

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