By late afternoon, the skies had darkened visibly and thick clouds rolling over the Donovan estate like a heavy blanket.
Sophia's once again, called by her team, needed to be at the campus, leaving me alone in the quietness while Jamie and Charlie were playing somewhere around the big house.
I was in the family room, in my soft spot next to the window and the fireplace, reading when the first drops of rain tapped against the glass, soft at first, then building into a relentless downpour.
I put down the book and pressed my forehead to the glass, watching as the world outside blurred into streaks of grey. "It's a rainstorm," I whisper.
Then, my chest felt tightened with that familiar ache rising uninvited. Rainstorms always did this to me. It dragged me back to the night that I wish never existed.
The night where my father, Thomas Everett, never comes back home.
I was young then, twelve years old young girl but I could remembered vividly, the frantic phone call, the hospital's hallways, my mother's muffled sobs against my shoulder and the sound of the rain pounding on the rooftop as if the sky itself was mourning with us.
Even now, thirteen years later, this sound still made it hard for me to breathe.
I was desperate for fresh air, I needed to let this off my chest. I stumbled towards the backdoor, and the moment I stepped outside, the rain plastered my hair and my face.
It was so cold and sharp against my tender skin. My breaths became shallow and ragged as if the storm itself was pressing down on me.
"Ellie." I heard someone called my name.
The voice was so steady, low, yet grounding. Then, I feel something warm settled over my shoulders. I looked up to see.
It was Tristan. "For god sakes, why is it always him? Seeing through my vulnerable pathetic self, drowning."
He seems used to my protest. His hand fastened the coat on my shoulder and stood close to me, trying to shield me from the torrent, though he was soaked himself.
"Breathe," he said firmly, his hand resting against my back.
"Follow my rhythm. Breath in, breath out. Slowly."
"I..," my voice cracked, swallowed by the rain. "I can't.."
"Yes, you can. You can do it, Ellie" His tone softened, though his grip remained steady. His thumb brushed along my shoulder, anchoring me. "Look at me," he said.
I did, I looked up to his face again, though. It nearly broke me. His eyes were no longer cold. They were very warm, steady, and unshakable.
The rain blurred everything except the sharp lines of his face and the way his expression softened only for me.
"I won't let the rain take you too," he whispered, his words nearly lost in the downpour.
I know something inside me cracked with this sentence. I was no longer drowning. I'm now breathing again because he, the pillar, wouldn't allow me to forget how to breathe.
And that itself terrifies me more than the storm itself because I wasn't sure if I wanted him to let go.