“Nothing.” I take the clothes he offers. “Turn around.”
I don’t know if he complies or not, but I take off my bra and panties. He got me a shirt and skirt of Katie’s, and underwear too, but no bra.
Katie's a smaller size than I am. She's a size zero while I'm a two. Her shirt is super tight against my nipples, and it's cold inside their house, so my nipples are still hard.
I quickly pull on the skirt and turn around. Kyle has his back to me.
“Thanks,” I tell him.
He reaches for my wet clothes, and his hand lands on my thong on top. “Erika…”
I say nothing.
Kyle walks away, and I hurry up to Katie’s room. Maybe this is crazy, but I want to go back out in the rain, so I put on her red bikini and head on out to their backyard.
Eventually, Kyle realizes. He comes out onto the back porch, and he watches as I dance. I’m not a trained dancer, but there have been plenty of times when Katie and I pretend that we know how to do leaps and twirls. It’s invigorating to be out in the rain, to feel it wash away all of my doubts, all of my worries, all of my fears. It somehow seems to solidify my intentions too. Even if I can’t have a motorcycle right away, I will own one someday. Even if I have to pay for it myself.
Mom can’t stop me.
No one can.
“You’re ridiculous,” Kyle calls.
“You don’t understand,” I say. “The water… it’s amazing.”
“We do have beaches,” he says.
“Yes, but this water is from the skies.”
“You’re a nut.”
“You’re a coward.”
“No one has ever called me that before,” he protests.
“Come on over here and prove that you aren’t,” I say.
He sighs and shakes his head.
I turn my back to him and do a few more jumps when I feel hands on my waist. My breathing hitches, and I twist around.
“My mom’s taken me to a few ballets. Forced me to, I should say.”
And we’re pathetic and terrible and so, so bad, but we pretend to dance, and he lifts me, and it’s ridiculous.
We even kiss a few more times, and he touches me in places Katie would kill me if she ever knew.
We don’t go all the way. Kyle stops before it gets that far, and I’m not sure if I’m upset or happy that we didn’t go even further. Kyle has always been Katie’s brother to me, nothing more.
In the rain, though, we became friends, and we’re still friends. Well, maybe not anymore since I ran away and left that life behind without even so much as a goodbye to either of the Quakes.
Maybe I should contact Katie and confess to her that her brother and I fooled around. She’ll want nothing to do with me then. It’ll break things between us entirely.
But I don’t. I just dance in the face of the storm. I dance in the rain, not daring to hide in the shadows of the overhang. My clothes are drenched, but I don’t care.
Max might give me the job, but he might not. That's not something I can control.
But I can control my feelings. Storms always make me calmer. Even when I was very young, I used to want to watch the rain at my windows. I loved the lightning strikes, to see that powerful light. The roar of thunder never frightened me.