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Alaine saw the body after the rain had washed away the blood, and the police had pulled in around the bridge.
She thinks Cole might have called her, voice high and urgent telling her she had to come down as fast as she could. He might have picked her up in his broken-down Ford Capri smoking a cigarette with trembling hands and told her they had to meet Danny and Lydia at the bridge.
She might have rolled her eyes at the smoke and whined about being dragged out in the middle of the night into the rain for what she thought had been a party.
But she couldn’t think anymore, and she couldn't care to remember.
[‘Rain’s so miserable,’ Maxine would groan, lounging across Alaine’s bed kicking at the bedpost and punching at the pillows. ‘Can’t go anywhere at all without getting dirty.’
Alaine slid herself next to her and they both swam in comfortable silence staring at the peeling ceiling listening to the pattering on the window.
Pic- pic- pic.
‘It’s not so bad,’ Alaine mumbled, ‘Sounds nice at least,’
Maxine rolled her eyes fondly. ‘Of course you’d like the sound of rain.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Alaine twisted her head to the side to find Maxine already looking at her. It seemed just that little bit harder to breathe.
‘It means…’ Maxine shuffled forwards so their foreheads touched (her heart tumbled over itself) and their noses brushed.
There were wrinkles at the corners of Maxine’s eyes and freckles that burst against her pale milky skin like a lost herd of sheep. Hair; a fire red so fierce it almost matched the way she acted and her eyes, a stark contrast- blue like water and grey like a storm. She had smile lines running from her nose, and a bundle of acne on her left cheek- her teeth weren’t perfectly straight, and her chin wasn’t perfectly sharp.
She was the most beautiful person Alaine had ever seen.
Maxine’s laugh burst from her lips and she gripped the edges of the covers hurling the thick material over their heads rolling them into a bundle of tangled limbs.
Pic- pic- pic.
The rain tapped softly at the window.
‘I dunno,’ Maxine laughed. ‘I dunno what it means,’
They hysterically shot to laughter, laying side to side under away from the world in their own universe until Alaine’s lungs hurt, and Maxine couldn’t stop herself from hiccuping.
‘Are you high or something?’ Alaine discreetly shuffled herself into Maxines chest, cheeks flushed and breath lazy. Maxine huffed dramatically and dragged her arms up so they rested on Alaine's back.
‘God no,’ Maxine paused to tug at the knots in Alaines hair, ‘Last time I got high Lydia threw me in a fucking river,’ She preformed an exaggerated shivered.
Alaine chuckled softly and brought her hand to rest on Maxine’s neck.
They laid for what felt like an eternity- until the rain stopped and the stars descended from the sky. It couldn’t have even been two hours. Flickering like candles in and out of sleep underneath Alaine’s pink, stained covers.
‘I’m gonna make it out of this stupid town one day,’ Maxine’s voice was husky and sudden. It filled their cocoon with something warm, something only for them to keep. Their legs tangled together melting into each other's arms. She pressed her nose to the crook of Maxine's slender neck, and breathed in.
‘Rains here way too much for my liking.’ Maxine drifted away to sleep.
Maxine, she thought, a silent prayer- a promise to the universe- her cheeks flushed, right there in that moment pressed against Maxine with their breath mixing and syncing and slowing. I’m going to escape Zepotha with you.
She closed her eyes, and slipped into dreaming. We’re going to survive this shitstorm together.]
‘Alaine, dude, I’m serious, you have to snap out of it.’ Cole’s voice was broken and so, so small. But she didn’t want to move, because moving meant she wasn’t dreaming, and moving meant that nothing would be keeping her together.
She took a shaky step forward and collapsed. She wasn’t sure when she started screaming, and she wasn’t sure when she’d started crying, but her throat felt like it had been ripped from her neck and she was bleeding and twisted to be rung dry. Her eyelids fell but the image was burnt in her brain.
The sight was shut away behind a curtain played as a forming crowd murmuring in distaste and angst. She glanced around manically from her spot on the wet ground. To Cole shaking on his feet, to Lydia stone faced leaning over the wooden side rail and to Danny-
He looked at her with something she couldn’t place. It might have been satisfaction. It might have been a challenge.
The crowd parted, if only for a second. She threw up.
Laying on the bridge, clean from the rain as pretty as an angle, hair like dull fire around her head- a halo, in that stupid black dress Alaine made her buy. Maxine looked like she could have just been asleep.
It started to rain.