She loved me, I thought to myself, both surprised and incredibly upset by that realization. Loved, I thought again, focusing on the past tense aspect of the word. A rock on the ground happened to appear just another step ahead of me and so I gave it a solid kick. The rock bounded away, skipping across the sidewalk at first before veering suddenly off to the left and toward the cars parked along side the street. I winced and shut my eyes, willing the rock to miss. Fortunately not all of my luck was bad and no sound of the rock striking a vehicle came. I relaxed, opened my eyes back up, and resumed my walk.

Idiot, I thought and shoved my hands deeper into my jacket pockets.

Of course it would have to be chilly today. It always had to be cold, or raining, or both every time I got bad news and it was one of the things I hated about being me. Most people would luck out at least some of the time and get sunshine to balance out their otherwise bad days. Not me. Of course, I also wasn’t ‘most people’. I wasn’t even really ‘people’, though to look at me I seemed a sort of average person.

It started to rain. It skipped the usual pitter patter of most rain storms and skipped almost at once to the thunderous buckets of water falling from the sky sort of rain I was accustomed to.

I stopped walking, cold water running down my neck, flowing along my spine and eventually soaking into my pants, socks, and shoes. I’d checked the forecast before leaving my house and it wasn’t suppose to rain. Those forecasts were usually correct, even on my bad days, but today was particularly rough so sure, why not? If it wasn’t for the fact that I’d decided to wear my dry clean only jacket I probably would have taken it all in stride. Already I could see the colors in the fabric starting to bleed and run.

“This was my favorite jacket,” I murmured out loud, “and now it’s ruined.”

“Sorry about that,” the storm murmured back, “but rain’s got to fall. It’s not my fault, you know.”

I hated talking to the weather and hadn’t meant to speak out loud. It was always eager for a conversation, especially with me. It ignored most of the others.

“You do realize we’re in a desert, right?” I asked the weather.

“No we’re not,” the weather replied and I could almost swear that there was a hint of a grin behind its voice. “Not  leastwise so long as you’re here.”

“Don’t put this on me!” I growled. “You’re the weather, not me.”

“Eh,” the weather said and this time it seemed as though it were shrugging, “Who is it that turns on the light, the power company or the person flipping the switch?”

I didn’t answer. The weather and I had had that argument before and I knew all too well it would go nowhere. The sidewalk always looked so flat and even when it was dry but now it seemed every patch of it had low spots and potholes where puddles collected and I stomped my way through all of them. My feet were already soaked so what was the point in trying to avoid them?

“Oh come on,” the weather implored, “don’t be like that.”

I ignored it and kept walking. I had a few miles to go before I’d be home and wanted to minimize my foul mood as best I could.

“Deep down you love the rain,” it said.

I did like the rain sometimes, it was true, but those were generally the times when I was under a decent roof and not dealing with the fallout of some bit of bad news or misfortune.

“I bet if you tried,” the weather went on defensively, “you’d be able to see the beauty in all of this. I mean, just think of the good this water will do for the land.”

That was too much for me.

“The good?” I demanded. “We’re in a desert! It’s not use to getting this much rain. It’s not suppose to get this much rain. For the last few years, they’ve been flooded out so many times that the top soil has all but been stripped away. The few things that use to grow here are pretty much gone and the farms are being abandoned. The towns downstream have been practically swept away, and there’s even a new lake developing.”

“Lakes are good, though,” the weather countered. “They make for great habitat.”

“This one’s so full of all the oils, sewage, and other pollutants from each flood that nothing’s going to be living in or near it.”

“Well you’re the one who chose to live here.”

I clenched my fists and bit down on my lip to keep from shouting. I could never tell if the weather intentionally worked to upset me or if it really was as infuriatingly simpleminded as it seemed. I’d asked some of the others about the weather before but none of them really had the same issues I had with it and so couldn’t help me figure it out.

“Who was she anyway?” the weather asked, bringing me once again to a standstill.

The weather had never asked me about my relationships before. It only ever seemed interested in pointing out how cold or wet I was and how it thought I should be more grateful to it for sending all of that cold and wet weather my way.

But now it had asked me about herand I hesitated.

“I don’t think I want to talk to you about her,” I said at last.

“Oh, well how do you like that?” the weather said in a huff and a gust of wind slapped my face with ice cold rain. “Here I go trying to be nice and conversational and you get all rude about it.”

I stomped a puddle hard enough to splash all of the water out of it. It was the only thing I could think of doing. There wasn’t really any way to lash out against the weather and so I had to find other things I could do.

“Very mature,” the weather mocked me.

“You know I’m not the one who’s acting out of turn,” I told the weather. “You’re the one who has rained and frozen me every time I wind up having a bad day. Not once have you given me even half decent weather when things are going badly.”

“You’re the one flipping the switch–

“NO!” I shouted and the people nearby stopped hurrying through the downpour to stare at me. I didn’t care. I’d had enough of the weather and enough of this day and I wasn’t going to take it any longer. “I’m having a bad day!” I went on, “A really bad day. That’s not me making a decision to flip a switch, or whatever. That’s just stuff happening and me having to deal with it! So take your wind and you rain and your freezing cold air and–

BOOOOM!

I was deafened by the thunder and blinded by the flash of lightning. My hands clapped over my ears even though the noise was already passed and my legs jerked as the electricity surged through them. Hail replaced the rain at once. They were large, just smaller than golf balls, and there was no shelter to be found unless I wanted to try climbing beneath one of the parked cars. Unfortunately the rain had so thoroughly filled the gutters and street that I was likely to be totally submerged and unable to breathe if I attempted it.

Welts and bruises rose quickly as I was pelted by the hail. I shielded my head as best I could, blood trickled down into my eyes from where the skin had been broken already. My hands didn’t fare much better than my scalp as they were struck again and again.

I have to get away from here, I thought while I ran, looking for some cover and knowing there wasn’t any. Nothing but bare desert, streets, and flat topped single story buildings that were all closed and locked up.

More lightning struck nearby but my hearing was still deadened from the first and so I only felt the deep concussion of the thunder as it pounded through me. I wasn’t too concerned about my ears. They’d heal. There wasn’t really anything the weather could do to me that would be long lasting. It wasn’t as if it could kill me. Still, pain was pain and I could feel that just as well as anyone else.

After a few minutes of dashing through the curtains of hail I gave up. There were miles to go before I could reach my home and whether I ran or walked I was already battered and bleeding. Running at this point would only give the weather greater satisfaction and so I slowed down to a steady walk. I kept my hands raised to keep my face protected from the worst of it but other than that I walked as normally as I could.

She loved me, I thought again, but this time rather than focusing on how that was all now in the past, I found some solace in the fact that she had loved me at all. If I’m ever so fortunate again I’ll make sure to appreciate it more.

The weather didn’t let up the entire way back home. In fact, by the time I reached my front door there were several inches of accumulated hailstones on the ground. That evening on the news they reported on the many buildings whose roofs had collapsed under the weight of the hail.

It’s about time I moved on, I thought with regret. I hated moving. All of my existence I had searched for a place I could settle down and call my own but just like everywhere else I’d tried, this much bad weather tended to cause nothing but ruin. Maybe I’ll go back North,I mused. Or I could try road tripping again. People weren’t so opposed to someone living out of a van nowadays as they use to.

Whatever I chose, the weather was sure to follow, but at least I could give this poor desert a break. With a sigh I got up and began to pack my belongings. By morning the weather will have stormed itself out and I’d be able to head out without fear of being pelted by hail or struck by lightning. At least, not until we got into another argument.