Lost: Chelsea’s Story
I’d like to say I was walking down the street on a very sunny day when it happened. I’d also like to say that I was eating an ice cream cone and dressed in my new summer dress that I had gotten the other day for my birthday. But both statements would be complete fabrications.
It was not sunny; it was raining. Hard. I was not in my summer dress, or any summer dress for that matter, I was in my pajamas. It wasn’t my birthday and I wasn’t eating ice cream. I was punished with the flu from the last time it had rained.
My mother said it was my fault for opening up the umbrella in the house. I told her it had to dry. Then she noticed I was soaking wet and proceeded to mother me until I was in bed and tucked in so tight I couldn’t move. And I stayed that way for a while: ridden with a fever, drinking chicken noodle soup until all I could taste in my mouth was oily broth, and reading only when my mother thought I was asleep and left me alone.
When I finally ran out of book to read, I peeled the sheets away and left out the window in the ironically falling rain. My mother, I thought, would probably think that I was asleep and not check my room until dinner time, which meant, after checking my watch, I had two hours to do whatever I wanted.
But I didn’t get very far when I ran into him. You know, the kind of person you wish you could have; the one who you can’t say his name and instead put italics around a pronoun when you say it or think it? Yeah, him. (This is different from the italics you put around a pronoun of someone you can’t even use their name for it is not worthy to have been uttered from your lips. That one has more emphasis.)
Anyway, he saw me wrapped up in a blanket and soaking in my pajamas, my hair an utter mess and dark circles under my eyes. I’m one hundred percent Romanian, so he might not have noticed the dark circles under my eyes, but he asked me politely what I was doing there without an umbrella and if I was ok.
I didn’t need to answer; I practically coughed out my lunch instead. Next thing I know, I’m being escorted under an umbrella (though it didn’t matter at that point) sweating like crazy, whether from the fever or blushing I’m not sure, as he had his arm carefully around my shoulders.
And then it came out. No, I didn’t puke. It was worse. I told him everything. Most of what came out I didn’t want anyone to hear, let alone…you know. Some of it was just stuff I hid because I was so damn nervous around him. Anyway, it spewed out whether I liked it or not. When I was done (this is part of why I love him) he didn’t even look surprised. He just smiled and led me back to my house against my sorry will and apologized to my mother. I was too sick to be mad and the more I thought about what he did, the more I thought I would have done the same thing in that situation. So I wasn’t mad at him when I got better and saw him again. And yes, at that point it was sunny. But I still wasn’t in that summer dress eating ice cream. And it wasn’t my birthday. But that’s another story for another time.
