And The Rain Falls - 1. Chapter 1

How I came to be sitting on this bench, I don't know. The last thing I remember was the feeling of having to get out; having to get away as fast as I could so that the gravity of the news I had just received didn't tear me to pieces. It was one of the few times in my life where I had trouble comprehending what I was hearing. It wasn't that I didn't hear it right but that I didn't want to accept it. I didn't want it to be true. It just simply couldn't be.

With that we went off and spent the rest of the day together. I had gained an instant friend and was able to move past the loss of my parents. And it was the memory of that day that I now found myself visiting while sitting on this bench, soaked to the bone and staring down at the waves as their mist topped peaks crashed against the rocks.

It rained for three days. Three long days of water streaming downward from the heavens, soaking the earth. The leaves stayed green, the flowers stayed hidden, and Ben stayed silent and motionless -- lost in the embrace of his coma.

When Celia found me sitting on the bench soaked to the bone, she tried to take me home. She tried to get me to dry off, to stop shivering. She took me home and made me change out of those wet clothes. Then she took me to him. Right to his side.

I was quiet the whole way, lost inside my own head. All I could think about was how everyone who mattered to me always left this plane of existence for another and that he would surely do the same. Seeing him lying there in that hospital bed made me wish for him to leave, if just to end the suffering that he would surely go through.

Those three days passed like water slowly dripping from a faucet. Seconds felt like hours, passing slowly, one after the next, every ‘Tick’ of the clock reverberating loudly inside my head.

Ben spent them in a coma, his leg in traction, his arm in a splint. He had a black eye, two broken fingers, three broken ribs, a fractured arm, and a badly broken leg. He was also covered in various cuts and bruises from where his windshield had imploded and his seat belt had held him firm.

“Celia, it’s so hard to see him like that, to see him injured. You guys are the closest thing to family that I have left and just to think of one of you like that tears me apart.” The thoughts running through his head were hurting him.

“I know Lucas, I know.” Was her reply, her hand resting on Lucas’ shoulder offering him some small form of comfort.

They were standing in the hallway outside of Ben’s room on the third floor of Harbor Memorial Hospital. The walls were a soft blue up here, the floors bright white, the lighting fluorescent. Everything here seemed exaggerated, from the soft patter of feet as the nurses shuffled around to the steady ‘tick’ the clock made as the second hand moved from one mark to the next.

It all served to remind Lucas that his best friend - his savior once upon a time - now needed saving and he was powerless to help. That and he couldn’t get past the notion that there was something gnawing at the furthest reaches of his mind, some thought that wanted to make itself known. Lucas didn’t know it yet but that thought would change the path of his future.

“Lucas, why don’t you go get some coffee” Celia suggested. “Or better yet, go home and get some sleep. You can’t spend all of your time here.”

She had a point. He was tired of sneaking an hour here or there in those uncomfortable hospital chairs. “Maybe you’re right. I just want to be here should anything change.”

“I promise I’ll call you first thing if it does. Do yourself this one favor and get some sleep. Ben would want that from you. And besides,” she injected as nicely as possible, “you’re kind starting to smell, so why don’t you grab a hot shower and clean clothes while you’re there?”

The look that Lucas cast her was pure steel. Under other circumstances he would have laughed at it, would have cast her one of his famous smiles and made her laugh as well. He pulled the collar of his t-shirt out and tilted his head down so that his nose was underneath the fabric and sniffed. Again, she had a point. She always had a point. And she had promised to let him know if anything changed...

“If you say so, but only if you promise to call me first.”

“I promise.” With that she hugged him and he slowly shuffled toward the lounge to grab his coat and from there on toward the elevators.

His SUV sat in the lot forty paces from the main entrance. He’d grabbed the first vacant spot when he’d followed Celia here from the cliffs. He dashed toward it, leaving the relative safety of the hospital overhang, trying not to get soaked again from this never ending downpour.

As he opened the door and slid into the embrace of the driver’s seat he couldn’t help but think about this picturesque seaside town and how even in the rain it managed to sparkle. He put the key in the ignition and turned it, the engine roaring to life.

He backed out of the space, shifted into drive, and headed left out of the parking lot. His house, a perfect 1950’s style craftsman, sat three streets up the hill from the hospital and four blocks over. Nothing in this town was far and his house was right in the middle. He’d bought it out of foreclosure for a steal and lovingly restored it. It was his main passion in life. Seeing it never failed to bring a smile to his face.

It sat there, back from the sidewalk, a giant elm shading the front yard. It wasn’t overly large or grand but it fit him. As he pulled into the driveway he couldn’t help but smile for the first time since he found out about Ben. As he quickly hurried through the rain and up onto the porch his smile faded.

** End Chapter One**

More to come. If you like it, please let me know. That is the best motivation to keep writing.