📘 Chapter 10: What Rain Doesn’t Wash Away🌧️
315 Words
The days stretched on, each one a mirror of the last, until even the bell that marked the end of lessons felt like an echo. Harizon moved through school like a ghost of himself—present, but not quite whole. His friends noticed, of course. Otieno cracked jokes louder than usual, hoping to stir something in him. Achieng offered her notes with a softness that felt like concern. But Harizon only smiled, the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes.
Clarion had become a rhythm he couldn’t shake. She was no longer the girl who sat beside him during prep, scribbling hearts in the margins of her notebook. She had become distant, like a song he once knew the lyrics to but now could only hum. And yet, she lingered in his thoughts, stubborn and sweet.
One Friday, rain fell hard over Mutuini, drumming against the tin roofs and flooding the football pitch. Students huddled under verandas, their laughter rising above the storm. Harizon stood alone near the library, watching the water pool around the mango tree. He remembered the day Clarion had danced barefoot in the rain, daring him to join her. He hadn’t. He’d only watched, afraid of what it meant to be that free.
Now, he wished he had.
Inside the library, he found a book she once loved—*The River and the Source*. He flipped through its pages, searching for her underlined passages, her notes in the margins. There were none. But the scent of old paper and ink reminded him of her anyway.
Later that evening, as the rain softened and the sky turned the colour of bruised peaches, Harizon walked back to the dorms with his hands in his pockets and his heart heavy. He didn’t know what he wanted from Clarion anymore. An apology? A reason? A moment?
Maybe just a look that said she remembered.
- Writer
