It started out as a light drizzle. Little dark brown spots speckled the earth, growing in size as the rain fell harder. Fé stared out the window, eyes blurring until the school grounds swirled in a hazy mix of muted colours. Her textbook lay open on page 54, detailing complex theorems, which their teacher was replicating on the blackboard.
She sat at the back, as usual, her gaze half lingering on an empty seat two rows ahead. Her pencil made a point on her notebook, unmoving, as if waiting for the rain to finish dictating before it copied down its message. A sudden gust of wind sprayed water through the rusted bars of the ancient windows, splattering her desk. Some girls sitting next to her shrieked, in turns asking or ordering her to close the window before they all got soaked.
Fé merely ignored them, locking away the foreign sounds of the classroom in a corner of her mind. Her ears were tuned in to the noise of the pounding downpour, straining to hear something, a whisper, an indication. Something. Against her will, she looked at the empty seat out of the corner of her eyes, pleading for reassurance.
But all she could feel was the world around her threatening to drown out the low murmur she was trying so hard to decipher. Her hand trembled on her page. She dismissed it as a reaction to the cold rain that was currently drenching her.
“God, Fé, would you please shut the window, we’re drowning here!” someone wailed.
She didn’t hear them. She blinked at her notes. A small raindrop was collected around her pencil point, slowly dissolving the peripheral graphite. She watched the little grey flecks swim in the little pool, entranced. Another raindrop appeared just beneath it. She gently dabbed her fingertip in it, faintly surprised at its warmth. What an unusual raindrop, she thought, unaware of the moist line running down her cheek.
An annoyed classmate was about to get up to close the window when an arm reached out to stop him.
“What?” he asked, very annoyed.
“Don’t. Just, just let her be, alright?” responded a worried voice.
“You don’t think that…look, it’s been three months since Abigail…well, you know. She should be over that by now,” he concluded, slightly unconvinced himself.
“They were best friends, it’s…hard for her. Just let it go.”
He looked over at Fé, shrugged and subsided.
Fé pretended like she hadn’t heard the hushed conversation, and a little angrily, turned her gaze heavenwards, questioning the selfish grey clouds that hovered low on the horizon.
She vaguely acknowledged the bell that marked the end of classes, playing the shuffling sounds of students leaving in her head while resolutely staring outside.
She didn’t know how long she sat there, kept company only by the rain, and the empty seat, made conspicuous by the fact that it would remain so for a very long time. Perhaps she wouldn’t be around long enough to watch someone replace the last person who sat there. Maybe she’d have to spend her life with the memory of a void that would remain unfilled.
Finally, she rose, turning her back to the classroom. She faltered at the doorway. She clenched her eyes shut as she whispered softly, “I’ll see you…” tomorrow, she’d meant to say, like she did every single day for the past three months, dreading the lie, at the same time depending on it to assuage her grief, even if temporarily. She couldn’t. The word died in her throat. She began taking quick strides away from the door, running down the hallway, and out in the rain. Her breath heaved in ragged gasps, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t seem to outrun the deafening silence that encapsulated her, imprisoning her in an endless tempest.
