The rain started wrong tonight,

A whisper instead of a warning,

A hush laid over the world,

Like something trying not to wake the dead. 

Each drop felt deliberate. 

Measured.

Like a countdown I couldn’t hear finish. 

I walk anyway,

The night wraps around me,

Like a secret too heavy to hold. 

It was almost a good day,

Balanced on the edge of something whole. 

Until it split open.

Until she slipped through the cracks,

That I pretended weren’t there. 

I reach for my umbrella,

But absence answers me. 

It’s an empty space,

Something familiar that should be with me,

Just like her. 

Five minutes to the bus stop.

Twenty minutes to wait. 

An eternity to remember. 

The rain thickens,

Not heavier,

Just closer. 

Clinging to my skin like it recognizes me. 

A second rhythm threads itself into the night. 

Footsteps.

Sharp as glass. 

Soft as guilt. 

I turn.

It’s a woman behind me. 

Stitched together by shadow and distance. 

Walking beneath a red umbrella, 

That bleeds color into the dark. 

The red umbrella glows.

It’s not bright, 

But it’s alive. 

Something in me recoils. 

Something else leans closer. 

Something too familiar,

Reminds me of her. 

I keep walking.

So does the woman under the red umbrella.

Our steps braid together

Mine and hers,

Until I can’t tell

Which sound belongs to me. 

The rain swallows everything else. 

The city dissolves.

And suddenly,

I am not alone with what I’ve done. 

The bus stop waits,

Empty and hollow,

A place meant for leaving,

That feels more like being found. 

She stands beside me now, 

Close enough that the air shifts. 

Close enough that I feel colder for it. 

The rain unravels,

The world blurs,

Edges melting, 

Colors bleeding,

Until everything becomes one long wound of red. 

Silence falls like a curtain.

I’m dry. 

The storm stops touching me,

As if I’ve stepped outside of it,

Or into something deeper. 

I’m under the red umbrella. 

I thank the woman for covering me,

She doesn’t answer. 

I look at her face,

It’s fragmented,

Like a broken mirror,

Reflecting something I don’t want to recognize. 

But I do.

Memory rises,

Like something drowning,

The argument,

Sharp and spiraling,

Her voice cracking,

My hands tightening,

The moment everything fragile gave way. 

The rain that night, 

Just like this night,

It was soft enough to hide the sound of something ending. 

And the umbrella was red,

A bright wound against the dark. 

I left her there.

Folded into the pavement. 

Wrapped in silence.

Sheltered by something that couldn’t save her. 

My breath fractures.

Her head tilts,

Slow and mechanical, 

Like grief learning how to move again. 

She steps closer. 

Close enough that I fall into her shadow. 

Close enough that I see what’s left of her. 

She’s not whole. 

She’s not human. 

She’s just a memory,

Reshaped into something that refuses to stay buried. 

Her fingers find mine,

Cold as the space between heartbeats. 

She cries that I forgot her. 

Her voice isn’t sound,

It’s pressure,

It’s weight,

It’s the echo of something that never stopped screaming. 

The umbrella dips lower,

The red spreads wider,

Dripping into the world,

Dripping into me, 

Until I can’t tell where it ends and I begin. 

The rain beyond it is no longer rain, 

It’s thicker,

Heavier,

Falling like consequence.

I understand now,

I was never walking home. 

I’ve been walking inside the moment I tried to leave behind. 

Looping it. 

Living it. 

Becoming it. 

Because she never left.

She just waited. 

Patient as the rain. 

Quiet as regret,

Under the red umbrella,

Where I left her. 

And it is now where I stay.