I Still Talk to Her in the Rain

I think about that summer more now than I ever did when I was living it. Maybe that’s what growing older really is. Realizing the moments that saved you were happening while you were too young to notice.

We were eighteen that year. Broke in the funny way eighteen-year-olds are broke. Just enough money for gas, cheap beer, and bad decisions. We thought the future was something distant and endless. We talked about life the way people talk about weather when they’ve never actually been caught in a storm.

She was my best friend. And if I’m being honest, probably the love of my life too. Though I didn’t understand that at eighteen. At eighteen, you think love has to be dramatic to be real. You think it’s supposed to burn.

What I felt around her was quieter than that. Safer. She made ordinary things feel sacred.

We used to drive with no destination just to escape our houses for a while. Small-town nights have this loneliness to them when you’re young. Like the whole world is happening somewhere else without you. We’d drive dirt roads with the windows down, music too loud, talking about who we thought we’d become someday.

Most of it was bullshit. Dreams borrowed from movies neither of us could afford to see in theaters. But God, we believed them.

One night we drove out to this lake somebody mentioned at a party. It turned out to be muddy and ugly and packed with drunk kids throwing fireworks at each other. I remember standing there disappointed, thinking we’d wasted the drive.

She looked out over the water for a long moment and smiled.

“This feels important,” she said.

I laughed. “Why?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Feels like one of those nights we’ll miss when we’re older.”

I remember looking at her under those cheap exploding fireworks. The light caught her face for half a second at a time. She looked tired even then. Beautiful, but tired. Like life had already started pressing down on her in ways nobody else noticed.

That’s the thing that haunts me now. How much pain people can carry while still managing to smile gently at you.

Later we sat on the hood of my truck eating melted candy bars because we forgot to buy actual food. The air smelled like rain and lake water and smoke from fireworks. She leaned against my shoulder and got quiet.

“You ever feel scared?” she asked.

“About what?”

“That maybe nobody actually stays.”

At eighteen, I didn’t know how to answer questions like that. Boys that age aren’t taught how to sit inside sadness with someone. We try to fix it. Joke it away. Outrun it. So I nudged her shoulder and smiled.

“I’m staying.”

She smiled back. But it was the kind of smile that already knew better. A year later, she killed herself. Even now, writing those words feels wrong somehow. Like language should be softer around certain truths.

People always imagine grief arriving like an explosion. But for me it was quieter. It was her empty seat in my truck. It was reaching for my phone before remembering there’d never be another message from her again.

It was realizing the last conversation we had was ordinary. I used to hate that. I used to replay it constantly, searching for hidden meanings. Some sign. Some sentence that could’ve saved her if I’d answered differently. But there wasn’t one. That’s the ugly part nobody tells you about suicide. Sometimes love isn’t enough to pull someone back from themselves.

And God, I loved her. Not loudly. Not perfectly. But completely.

For a long time after she died, I became someone I wouldn’t recognize now. Angry. Distant. I treated life like something I just had to survive instead of something worth participating in. I drank too much. Slept too little. Kept everyone at arm’s length because losing someone once felt survivable, but twice felt impossible.

Then years passed. Slowly, quietly, life kept happening around me. And somewhere along the line, I realized something that would’ve made her smile.

I survived. Not cleanly. Not gracefully. But I did.

Now there’s rain hitting the porch outside my house while someone sleeps softly in the other room. There’s a dog at my feet. Dirty dishes in the sink. A half-finished cup of coffee gone cold beside me.

Nothing extraordinary. Just life. And maybe that’s what she was trying to tell me at that lake all those years ago. That life was never about the grand moments.

It was this. The sound of laughter from another room. The way storms make a house feel warmer. The people who sit beside you in silence and make loneliness loosen its grip for a little while.

Sometimes I still talk to her when nobody’s around. Usually late at night. I tell her about the life I almost didn’t stay long enough to have.

And in those quiet moments, I can almost hear her laughing again. Like she’s somewhere just beyond memory saying, See? I told you this would matter someday.

The Road Didn’t Promise Anything

The road ran flat and empty, cutting through fields that looked finished with trying. The land was brown and still, stripped down to what it could manage. He drove with the radio off, and the window cracked just enough to feel the cold air bite his face.

He had left to get away from things that would not let go. Names that followed him. Faces that showed up without warning. The past rode in the passenger seat whether he wanted it there or not. It spoke when the road grew quiet.

He told himself he was not running. That was a lie he did not bother correcting. There was nothing heroic in the leaving. It felt thin. Necessary, maybe, but thin all the same. The miles did not heal anything. They only spread the damage out.

He watched the fields slide by and thought about what had been lost. A woman. Time. Versions of himself that had not survived. He had spent years becoming someone he did not recognize and even longer pretending it was fine.

Silence filled the car. It pressed in. It had weight. At a crossroads with no town in sight, he slowed and nearly stopped. Turning back seemed pointless. Going forward felt no better. The road offered no advice.

He stopped for gas at a small station that looked forgotten. The coffee was burnt. The clerk did not ask where he was headed. That was a mercy. Outside, the wind moved through the weeds and made them bow. He envied them. They did not remember anything.

Back on the road, the light dropped lower. The sky dulled. He wondered if this was all there would ever be—movement without meaning, distance without direction. The thought sat heavy and did not move.

He felt old then. Not in years, but in effort. Tired of trying to outrun what lived inside him. Tired of hoping things would change simply because he wished they would.

For a while, he drove as if nothing waited ahead. Then the road curved. It was a small thing. Almost nothing. But it broke the line of sight. The land changed shape. Trees gathered near the shoulder. The light shifted and caught on something new.

He slowed. The past did not disappear. It stayed where it belonged, behind him. It did not chase. It did not call out. He realized then that leaving was not about erasing what had been. It was about seeing what might still be possible. Not happiness. Not redemption. Just the chance to keep going without hating himself for it.

The road went on.

For the first time that day, it felt like enough.

A Quiet Want

He thought about her most days.

Not in a hopeful way. Hope required movement, and this was mostly stillness. He thought about her the way a man thought about a place he would never go but knew well from maps. The thought was familiar. It did not ask much.

She did not know he existed. That was the cleanest part of it. He had seen her enough to know the shape of her walk and the way she held her coffee when it was hot. Small things. Things that did not matter to anyone else. They mattered to him because he had little else that did.

People had already decided who he was. They did this easily. Men were sorted quickly. Labels were applied and rarely removed. He had learned that fighting them only made them stick harder. So he carried his quietly.

What he wanted was simple. Not possession. Not rescue. Only to be seen. To have her look at him and recognize the man he was when no one else was watching. The man he kept to himself because there was nowhere safe to set him down. He knew it would not happen. Knowing did not stop the wanting. It only kept it orderly.

Some nights, he imagined telling her everything. Not in a speech. Just a few honest sentences spoken plainly. He imagined her listening without judgment. That was as far as the thought ever went. Reality did not allow more.

He understood his place. There were men meant to be chosen, and men meant to watch. He had always watched well. It was his one skill.

The days passed without incident. They always did. He went where he was expected. He said what was required. He did not make trouble. He did not make himself known. There would be no revelation. No late understanding. No moment where she saw him clearly and changed her mind. He accepted this the way a man accepted weather he could not alter.

One day, he would die. It would be quiet. People would be surprised less than they should be. His wanting would end then, which might be a relief. Until that time, he would think of her.

That was enough to fill the days. And not enough to save him.

Things Unsaid

 

The sun went down slow, the way it did when it wanted to be noticed.

Light spread across the sky in long bands of red and gold. It should have been enough. It usually was for other people. He watched it alone, sitting where he always sat, hands folded, back stiff, saying nothing.

A life could be wasted without drama. He had learned that too late. It did not require disaster or ruin. It only required delay. One choice put off. One word left unsaid. Then another. And another. Time did the rest.

He thought of the woman he had loved. Not in detail. Details hurt more. He thought of her laugh. The way it had surprised him the first time. The way it stopped surprising him after he assumed it would always be there. He had been good at assuming.

Love had not left him all at once. It had gone the way light leaves a room at dusk. Slowly. Quietly. By the time he noticed, it was already dark.

There were things he should have said. Things that would not have cost him much at the time. Pride had seemed cheaper. It rarely was.

The sun slipped lower. The air cooled. The world did not pause for his thinking. It never had.

He wondered who he might have been if he had stayed. If he had tried harder. If he had known that wanting something and keeping it were not the same skill. These questions had no answers now. They came too late and stayed too long.

The sky deepened. Purple edged the gold. For a moment it was beautiful enough to forgive everything. He felt that forgiveness almost reach him. Almost.

Then it passed.

When the light finally left, he remained where he was, alone with what had been and what would never come again. The day ended cleanly. His life had not.

He sat until the first stars appeared, small and indifferent.

There would be another sunset tomorrow.

It would not change anything.

Lost On The Banks

He spent the afternoon on a flat rock along the Blue Earth River, where the water moved slow and brown and smelled faintly of rot. The river did not look dangerous, which made it dangerous in his mind. Things that announced themselves were rarely the ones that killed you.

Fishing for carp and suckers suited him. No one respected them, which felt fair. They lived in the murk, grew thick, and fought harder than they should. The boy liked that.

A coffee can of nightcrawlers sat beside him. They had been gathered a few nights earlier in a hard rain, pulled from the grass with numb fingers and a flashlight that blinked as if reconsidering its role in the evening. Grass worms were better. Everyone knew that. Gutter worms and road worms died quickly, as if ashamed of where they’d been found.

The line arced through the air and disappeared into the quiet below. Small ripples spread and vanished. Nothing happened, which gave the mind room to wander. That was always risky.

The river changed first. It deepened. Darkened. The banks grew closer together. Minnesota faded. A jungle took its place, hot and loud and wet. The air pressed in. Vines hung low. Insects whined with purpose. No school existed there. No bells. No schedules. No parents asking questions that required answers.

Survival simplified things.

A knife appeared at the boy’s belt. A good knife. Necessary. Scars followed, earned in fair fights with snakes and unnamed creatures. Respect came easily in the jungle. Silence mattered.

The water below thickened in his thoughts. Shapes moved there. Long ones. Flat ones. Old ones that had never seen daylight and did not care about age or innocence. Something waited. Something patient.

The idea of being dragged under crossed his mind. The rock tipping. The pole disappearing. Bubbles rising. Silence afterward. The thought did not bother him as much as it probably should have.

Then the world emptied. Not destroyed. Just gone. Houses stood vacant. Roads cracked. No voices carried. No engines started. The boy, alone by the river, forced to learn. Shelter would be built from branches and mud. Fire would come from sticks, even if it took all day. Fish and berries would be enough. Thinness would follow. Strength would come later. Loneliness seemed manageable.

The rod bent hard. Reality arrived without warning. The Zebco 33 screamed as line peeled out fast and hot. The sound tore straight through jungle and fantasy alike. Feet scrambled. Balance wavered. The river lunged back.

Something heavy pulled deep. Arms burned immediately. The rod shook. The fish ran hard and refused to explain itself. This felt important. This felt final. The surface broke once.

The carp was enormous. Bigger than reasonable. German shepherd-sized, at least, which was not accurate but felt right. Ancient. Insulted. Fully committed.

The boy leaned back and cranked. Breath came fast. Words were spoken quietly, none of them useful. The fish surged again. For a moment, loss seemed possible.

Then fatigue arrived, as it always did. The runs shortened. The power dulled. Inch by inch, line returned. The battle ended not with triumph but with agreement. The carp lay thick and muddy in the shallows, scarred and unimpressed. One cold eye stared without judgment or apology. Nothing in it asked for mercy.

Respect came instead. That fish had lived a long time in dark water. Floods. Winters. Hooks avoided. Survival earned. Size justified. The release was gentle. The carp hesitated, then slid back into the brown, disappearing as if nothing had happened.

The river returned to itself. The jungle faded. The empty world dissolved. The rock felt solid again. Arms ached. Hands smelled of fish slime, worms, and mud.

Another cast followed. For a while longer, nothing demanded anything at all.

That felt right.

Christmas in the 70’s

I still wake up early at Christmas.

Not four-thirty early anymore. My body won’t allow that kind of devotion now. But something in me still stirs before the light, the way it did when I was nine years old and convinced that sleep was a foolish thing to waste on Christmas morning.

It was 1978. I know that because the house smelled the same way it always did back then—coffee, pine needles, and whatever optimism my parents had left. I slipped out of bed at 4:30 like a burglar who knew the floorboards by heart. Every step was planned. Every creak, avoided. I made it to the bottom of the stairs and paused, listening for movement, breath held like it mattered.

Nothing.

Santa had come.

The living room glowed softly from the tree lights. Colored bulbs reflected in the window like they were trying to escape. And there it was—my Hot Wheels racetrack. Long, looping, impossible. Plastic orange curves laid out with precision and care. I stood there for a moment, stunned, reverent, like I’d wandered into a cathedral.

Then I did what I always did. I touched it.

By five-thirty, it was in pieces.

At the time, I had no idea that “Santa” was my father, or that he’d spent hours the night before on his knees, squinting at instructions, snapping plastic together while the rest of the world slept. I didn’t know that patience is a limited resource, or that adults keep it in smaller containers than kids assume.

All I knew was that I needed to understand how it worked.

I wasn’t destructive. I was curious. There’s a difference, though it often looks the same from the outside. I wanted to see how the cars stayed on the track. How the launcher snapped back. How the curves held together. By the time the sun started thinking about rising, the track was reduced to a tidy pile of parts and one very confused child.

My father came into the living room around seven.

He stood there, hair flattened on one side, coffee not yet poured, staring at the wreckage of what had once been a masterpiece.

He did not say anything at first. That silence told me everything.

The Hot Wheels track did not make it through the morning intact again. Santa was… displeased. I learned something important that day about effort, though it would take me years to understand it fully.

The Tonka dump truck was another matter entirely.

It sat there like a monument. Bright yellow. Massive. Solid. Steel, not plastic. A truck that meant business. It made the Lovall dump trucks that rumbled past our house all summer look tired and worn. Those trucks were dented, scratched, chipped, scarred by work.

My Tonka truck was perfect. That bothered me.

As I stood there turning it over in my hands, my mind started working. If this truck was going to be real, if it was going to work, it needed history. It needed damage. It needed proof that it had lived.

My father owned a ball-peen hammer. I remember that detail clearly. I also remember the sound it made when it met yellow steel for the first time. Sharp. Final. Satisfying. One dent. Then another. Just enough to give it character. Authenticity. Realism.

This decision did not go over well.

My father’s reaction was immediate and loud, and deeply educational. It turns out realism is not always appreciated when it involves brand-new toys and tools from the basement.

But I was not trying to ruin anything. I was trying to make it better. I always was.

Looking back now, I see a pattern. I took things apart too soon. I wanted answers before I was ready for them. I believed perfection was suspicious and that anything worth loving should show a few marks. That hasn’t changed much.

Christmas is still my favorite time of year. Even now. Even with the years stacked behind me. I like the quiet mornings. The lights. The smell. The way memory sneaks up on you when you’re not paying attention.

Sometimes I think about my father, kneeling on the living room floor in the middle of the night, snapping together a racetrack for a boy who would dismantle it before breakfast. I think about how angry he was—and how he still showed up.

I didn’t understand then that love often looks like effort you don’t see until it’s gone. And maybe that’s the real gift. Not the toys. Not the magic. But the hands that built things quietly in the dark, knowing full well someone would come along and take them apart, just to see how they worked.

I suppose I was always that kid. And in some ways, I still am.