“It was a mistake,” Claire had insisted, pressing her forehead against the chain link fence. “What happened between us. That time at the picnic...in the laundry room…”

“And in the rain?” was Ellie’s inquisitive reply.

Claire didn’t respond but she could feel the heat of Ellie’s presence behind her, and her thoughts were temporarily undone to that unbridled moment of sodden kisses in a downpour that had left them soaked to the bone.

“Why are we doing this?” Claire uttered, fastening her fingers tightly around the chain link fencing. “Why does this keep happening? You don’t even like me.”

Ellie’s hand pressed against hers from behind, entwining their fingers over the chain links, igniting a painful longing from the hollow of her ribs. Claire resented that longing, and the flickering sparks that singed her fleshed whenever they touched. They were tangled in a web of virulent attraction, toxic and sweet; but as crushing as it was, it made her feel alive, and she hated herself for it.

“I can’t stand you,” Ellie whispered, leaning in enough for Claire to feel the heat of Ellie’s breath across her neck. “Everything about you irritates me. Always so perfect, a damn saint. You’re like a poster child for the elusive happily-ever-after that every adolescent girl dreams of. But when you’re standing next to my brother, you couldn’t be more miserable.”

“You hate me, then?” Claire choked out.

“I don’t know, maybe. Maybe but...”

Ellie’s voice trailed off and she leaned closer, startling Claire by pressing up against her and nuzzling her hair, tentatively touching her lips to the nape of Claire’s slender neck. Ellie’s hands instinctively tightened around Claire’s cold fingers, clasping possessively as she closed her eyes. Claire tensed, and held her breath, riding out the sparks that lit up her spine.

“I can’t reason when I’m near you," Ellie murmured softly, her voice humming along the curves of Claire’s neck. “I hate it when he touches you. I hate it.” She pulled her arms up and across Claire’s chest, embracing her firmly from behind, pressing cheek to neck and inhaling sharply.

“So, what does that say about me?” She uttered as she exhaled, feeling her strength leave her with every ounce of breath.

Claire had no answer.

~X~

The rain wasn’t letting up.

Ellie waited beneath the awning in front of the university library, listening to the rain as it crackled on stone and concrete, hoping it would be quick to wind down. A half hour crept by, but the rain only pelted down harder, forming wide puddles and flooding over walkways. Ellie hadn't prepared for rain that day. Her umbrella was inconveniently tucked away in the back of her closet at home, and she was wearing her red canvas sneakers and a thin drawstring hoodie shirt that had all the appearances of warmth with none of the functionality.

Then there was the matter of her ride home. She still had to walk down to the student union at the bottom of the hill to retrieve her bicycle from the bike lock station. From there, she would have to ride nearly three miles in the rainstorm to get home.

I could call for a cab, she figured, although three dollars and thirty-seven cents was unlikely to get her very far. Ellie also considered calling Ephraim to come pick her up, but he was working the evening shift that month, and Gavin would still be in class for another three hours.

In the end, it was her sister-in-law who would pick her up from school.

When Claire arrived, Ellie loaded her bicycle into the bed of the pickup truck and quickly fastened it into place before she hopped into the passenger seat. It was warm inside, and there was a subtle sweetness in the air, like honey, lilacs, and magnolia leaves. A scent that Ellie always associated with Claire. There was also a small white hand towel set out for her on the console between the seats, meticulous folded into a perfect square.

“Thanks for coming to pick me up,” Ellie mumbled as she unfolded the towel and squeezed it over her wet braids, “and for this.”

“You’re welcome. Besides, I figured you probably didn’t bring an umbrella.”

“Is that the impression I gave on the phone?”

“No. It’s just, you never do,” Claire answered, a small smile touched her lips as she leaned forward to change the radio station.

“Oh.”

Ellie’s cheeks were warm and wet, and she imagined that they were flushed bright red from the onslaught of the running heater. When Claire smiled at her, Ellie was compelled to hide her face under the damp towel with bated breath, her ears burning hotly.

The drive home took all of five minutes, even with delays set in by the rain. But even five minutes was too long for Ellie as she contended with the sweet and heady scent of lilac perfume and unfettered thoughts of the laundry room.

It embarrassed her to remember how obnoxious she had been that day. She had been acting out, lashing anger and resentment at the wrong person.

“Maybe I’ll tell him,” Ellie had threatened, masking the emptiness of her words and finding comfort in her ire. “What do you think about that? Is that what you want?”

She was never going to tell. One mistake was not worth upturning their lives and losing her brother. But she could not abstain from pressing Claire’s buttons; it was almost compulsive the way she sought them out. And she wondered if Claire thought about her, if she was just as undone as Ellie had been that evening, buttons imploding in the darkness.

“Those damn tires,” Claire hissed under her breath as she pulled the truck into the two-car garage. “I told him not to block the door.”

Ephraim’s muscle car was also parked inside, it’s rear was propped up by a couple of heavy duty floor jacks where there should have been tires, and the hood was left propped open. Ellie’s brother and Mateo had been working on it before she’d left for her first lecture that morning, and they’d left the tires piled in front of the door to the backyard, along with a couple of empty beer bottles on the roof.

“I need to bring the bed sheets in from the rain,” Claire explained as she parked the truck and handed Ellie the keys. “Take my purse inside, will you?”

Claire didn’t wait for Ellie to respond as she hopped out the driver’s side and circled her way out the garage and to the backyard from the side gate.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Ellie mumbled to herself, grabbing her backpack and Claire’s handbag and pulling them over her shoulder. She took down her bike and hoisted it up on the bike rack, careful not to scrape the truck again, and set the car alarm before she entered the house. The last time she’d scrapped the truck, Ephraim had made her touch up and polish the paint on the same night that Band of Horses was playing at the Arena. She’d begrudgingly forfeited her ticket to Gavin’s eager cousin that day.

“Should I get started on dinner?” Ellie called out into the kitchen, setting the keys on the kitchen countertop before locking the garage door behind her. “Claire?”

Ellie peered into the laundry room and down the corridors leading to the master bedroom, but the floors were dry and the rooms were empty. She called Claire’s name again as she wandered into the living room, dropping their bags next to the sofa.

“Where are you?”

But Claire hadn’t yet made it into the house. The rain was pouring buckets now, drumming violently against the rooftop and the east-facing windows, and filling the house with the clamoring hum of the downpour. The sky rumbled too, groaning in intervals, and branches scraped against the northeast windows as the winds pummeled through.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” Ellie yelled out into the rainstorm as she pulled the sliding door open. “You’re gonna get soaked!” but her voice was caught in the rainfall and not one syllable had reached within Claire’s earshot.

Claire, as it happened, was still hassling with the clothesline, fighting against wind and rain to pull down a tangled bed sheet that had caught against the metal hook ends. She was already soaked to the skin; her long hair wetly hugged her neck and shoulders, and her blouse clung tightly against her torso, drenched and transparent over her bra. And her shoes had nearly disappeared under several centimeters of rain.

“Jesus,” Ellie groaned, then she pulled her hoodie over her head and sloshed across the flooded backyard into downpour, but the rain had been coming down so heavily that her sheer thin hoodie did nothing to keep her hair dry.

“Come on,” Ellie urged, taking Claire by the wrist and tugging her back toward the house. “Just worry about this later.”

But Claire was unyielding, and she pulled out of Ellie’s grasp, taking her hand in turn.

“Here,” Claire instructed, securing one end of the tangled bed sheet into Ellie’s grasp. “Hold on while I get it undone.”

Ellie conceded, pulling the bed sheet down with both hands to keep it from flapping wildly in the wind. “We should just leave this one behind and take the rest,” she continued to implore. The other three bed sheets remained fastened to the clothesline, rustling loudly as rain and wind beat against the tightly woven fabric.

“Are you even listening to me?” Ellie was nearly yelling, struggling to be heard over the rain. She was soaked now, and trembling. Her bootcut jeans were heavy with rain and pulled at the hips like weighted armor, and her feet ached as the cold from the grassy puddles percolated to her bones.

“Shit!”

Claire released the clothesline and snapped her hand back, cradling it against her chest, and Ellie could see a bright blot of blood on the bed sheet already beginning to wash away near the catch on the hook.

“Are you hurt? Lemme see.”

Ellie didn’t wait for permission when she took Claire’s injured hand, examining it carefully as she pushed back her hoodie. It was a long cut, running from the base of her palm along the fate line and intersecting with the heart line, just below her middle digit. Claire bit her mouth, gasping as Ellie traced the wound with her fingers.

“Is it pretty bad?” Claire rasped under quick short breaths. There was an intensity brimming behind her eyes that was all too familiar, infecting Ellie through mutual touch.

“Not too bad,” Ellie assured her, releasing her hand, even as the infection spread into her chest. “It’s barely bleeding anymore. You’re lucky that the cut was not too deep.”

She was all too keenly aware of their closeness, mired by the heat in Claire’s eyes, that rueful draw that mirrored her own.

And then it happened again. The space contracted between them, slowly diminishing until it was completely nullified. Their wet bodies pressed against each other, hip to hip, and the warmth of their ragged breaths teased cold trembling lips into supplication. Ellie did not know who kissed who first, but it didn’t matter. They both wanted this, and it could no longer be a mistake.

Claire pressed deeper into her mouth, and Ellie gasped for breath, resenting the inconvenience of her biological need for air. They clung to each other, foreheads pressed together as their breaths abated, and Ellie pressed a hand to Claire’s face, tenderly cupping her cold cheek. Even in pouring rain, Claire smelled of honey and lilacs, a fact that drew a smile to Ellie’s lips.

Her smile didn’t last long. Their bodies were pressed so close together that one small misstep had them tumbling back. Ellie reached for the tangled bed sheet to regain balance, but their combined weight was too much and the bed sheet tore off the hook, sending them into the rain-flooded grass. They landed with a splash, the bed sheet submerged beneath them in the water, and white bed sheets blowing above them, encasing them in a world of white, and Ellie was startled by the shimmering droplets of rain that glittered in Claire’s hair like tiny stars.

“We probably should go inside now,” Claire uttered, her unwavering gaze fixed to Ellie’s face.

“We should?” Ellie choked, heat crawling up her neck and sending shivers up her spine.

“We can’t stay here like this. I’m freezing.”

Then, leaning in closer, her lips almost grazing Claire’s earlobe, Ellie whispered, “Do you want to go inside?”

Claire’s eyes went wide, her pupils expanding as her heart throbbed in her chest. The implication born from just one stress of a syllable was not lost to her, and she wasn’t sure if she could let pass unnoticed.

“Do you want to?” Was her tremulous reply, fear and excitement expanding from the pit of her stomach.

“Yes,” Ellie whispered back, teasing her mouth over Claire’s. “I want to.”

And Claire kissed her.