“It looks like rain,” Trey said… 

 Arlene

“It looks like rain,” Trey said. I bit into the apple I was holding, glancing up at the clouds. They were rolling in quickly from the east.

“Should’ve brought an umbrella,” I murmured through the mush of apple in my mouth. Trey took the apple and rolled it over in his hands, finding a spot that didn’t have my saliva dripped on it, and took a bite. What, did I have cooties?

“Now,” Trey began, passing the apple back, “The thing about you is you never plan ahead. You’re not a thinker, like me.”

“A thinker? Like you? Says the boy whose going to graduate from high school with a 54 percent average.” I tossed the apple over my shoulder into the forest and looked at him. He was shaking his head slowly, a small smile on his lips.

“Naw, see? I plan ahead.” He lifted his hand, revealing he had brought one of those compact umbrellas that you unfold and pop open. He waved it a little too arrogantly, so I snatched it and whacked him in the head.

“Stop being an idiot,” I murmured, throwing the umbrella on his lap. He shrugged, picking it up and looking it over, like I might’ve ripped or ruined it.

“I’m not an idiot,” he said, touching a spot on his umbrella where the wiring popped out, “I’m wise.”

“Wise,” I stated, skaing my head, “You think your wise because you’re 18 and I’m still 17. You know, I’m going to be 18 in 11 months.”

“And by then I’ll be 19,” he said, reaching forward to ruffle my hair. “Aww, is someone being pissy?” he asked when I crossed my arms. I ducked his hand and smacked it away, frowning.

“If you keep this up I’m not going to skip school with you anymore.”

“Ah, than maybe you can finally get an education,” he retorted, getting to his feet and dusting the dirt from his jeans. “And people with better education have better manners, and that’s definatly something that’ll get you far in life.” I socked him in the arm. He dodged, than popped open his umbrella and squinted up at the sky.

I hopped to my feet. Water began to patter down on the grass and I waited, my arms held out wide, for it’s refreshing relief to wash over my skin.

I felt a hand dig into my arm and pull me under the umbrella. Trey held me, squished against his body, his expression dead serious.

“What’s wrong, is the city-boy afraid of a little water?” I smiled when he remained silent. “You know, us kids out here in the bush love when it rains, so you got to let your little pissy grudge against –,”

“Something’s wrong,” he said. I paused and listened quietly. The rain pitter-pattered against the top of his umbrella. I peeked up at the sky. The dark clouds looked intimidating, but not wrong.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Something.” I made to take a step outside of his umbrella, but he sensed my body shift and his grip tightened.

“Okay, Trey? You’re kind of giving me a bruise here.” He released his grip, his eyes scanning the horizon. I exhaled, saying, “and dude, there’s nothing wrong.” He shook his head, his blonde hair falling in his eyes.

“Well…,” he slipt his arm through mine and forced a smile. Even though it was completely fake, it made me feel better.

Trey Stewart might not be the smartest cookie in the jar, but his almost freakily accurate intuition had saved us on more than one occasion.

Like when we stole from Mr. Herbert’s orchard. We wanted one measley apple from his apple tree, especially since it had been a stiffling hot day, but halfway through climbing over the fence Trey stopped and said we should wait a bit.

This had had been a few years ago, and I, admittedly, was not as smart back then as I am now, so I flipped him off and climbed over. I was going to take three apples and eat them all.

Screw Trey, I thought, he doesn’t get any. Especially if he’s going to chicken out.

Well, Mr. Herbert’s humongously big rottweiler cam barging around the corner and bit me on my ass as I was scrambling back up the fence. Three stitches later, I learned to trust Trey’s intuitiong over my own.

That memory alone made me stay rooted under the umbrella and by Trey’s side. We started crossing the grassy field, taking baby-steps until we got to Trey’s beat-up but reliable car.

He held the umbrella over me as I got in the passenger side, then he walked around and got in the driver’s side. For awhile, we just sat there and stared at the rain. Now that I was concentrating on it, it did look wrong. It looked greasier, and slimey… like, like… like what?

Well, not like rain.

“Arlene,” he said. I looked over at him and saw worry sketched on his face. The rain was just different, that’s all. It probably picked up some massive pollution from the nearest big city, like Calgary or Edmonton. It was nothing to worry about.

I mean, it was just stupid rain.

“Let’s go home,” I blurted. He started the car wordlessly, reversing out onto the old dirt road. He flicked on the windshield wipers, and a lump in my throat formed when the greasy water smeared across the windshield, instead of being flicked off like normal water.

We drove slowly, Trey peering cautiously through the blury windshield as I bit my nails down to the skin.

Trey had only just gotten his G2 license, and he wasn’t even that good of a driver. With the addition of thick, slimey shit on the windshield… Well, excuse me but I think I had enough right to be worried for my life.

We made it back into town and turned down Main Street. Usually, Main Street was bussling with life. People were usually buying food from the grocery store, or visiting one of the five pubs. Today? There was no body.

“Eerie,” Trey remarked. And it was. I had never not seen anybody on Main Street, even with the rain.

Trey pulled his car to the curb outside the grocery store and got his wallet.

“Where are you going?” I hissed. I really wanted to say, Don’t leave me here alone! but that would’ve been the perfect opening for him to insult me.

“I need a few things,” he said, turning to smirk at me. “Is somebody afraid of being left alone?”

“No,” I spat, crossing my arms. He laughed and opened his car door. Since the grocery store had a roof that stuck out over the street, he didn’t grab his umbrella.

“I’ll be back in five minutes.”

“Whatever.” He licked his finger and wiped it on my cheek, slamming his door shut before I could lean over and smack him. I heard his laughter as he walked into the store, muffled by the pounding of the rain on the car.

“Stupid boy,” I mumbled, uncrossing my arms. I picked up his collection of CD’s and shuffled through them, laughing at some of them and wondering who some of the artist’s were for others. I stumbled across a CD I had burnt him for last Christmas and a huge smile lit up my face, surprised he still had it.

I opened the case and skimmed over the song titles in my messy handwriting. A few of them had doodles next to them, like a swirly line or a bouquet of flowers. I wondered when he had done them any why – had he been talking on the phone and had just mindlessy doodled, or was he stuck in traffic one day and decided to draw little designs on the CD paper?

I contemplated whether or not to ask him about it when he got back, than decided against it. I placed my CD at the very bottom of his stack and placed it back in its place between the passenger and driver seats.

And that’s when a hand slammed down on the windshield, blood flooding out of an open wound and mixing with the greasy rainwater.

______________________________________________________________________