Chapter Six:The Rain between us
1059 Words
The rain had started just as the city lights flickered on—soft at first, then louder, like the sky itself couldn’t hold back anymore.
Damian stood under the awning of the Alaric Foundation’s grand event hall, black umbrella in hand. His tailored suit clung to his frame beneath the damp air, his eyes scanning the nearly empty lot with a tightness in his chest he hadn’t felt in years.
The gala had ended over an hour ago. The press had left. The socialites were already halfway to their afterparties. Security stood discreetly at the gates, ready to lock down the building. But Damian wasn’t ready to leave.
Because she was still here.
Selena.
Leaning against her car like time hadn’t touched her, arms crossed tightly over her chest, her dress slightly damp from the misting rain. A woman who once laughed under trees in the village, barefoot and fearless. Now standing in heels, beautiful and unreadable, as though the past never existed.
He approached slowly, the echo of his footsteps drowned by the rain.
“You’re going to get sick standing out here,” he said quietly, stopping just a few feet from her. “It’s cold.”
She didn’t turn. “I’m already tired, Damian. I think that counts for something.”
There was no malice in her voice—just exhaustion. And somehow, that was worse.
“I didn’t expect you to come tonight,” he said.
She shrugged. “You invited me. Thought it’d be rude not to show up.”
“I invited you because I needed to see you. Not because of the event.”
She finally turned to face him, her eyes locking onto his. A dozen emotions flickered there—resentment, curiosity, hurt, and something else… something he couldn’t name yet.
“Why now?” she asked softly. “Why reach out after all these years? Why pretend this is something you can fix with a smile and a charity invitation?”
“I’m not pretending,” he said. “I’m trying.”
“You should’ve tried ten years ago.”
“I know.”
She stepped away from her car and crossed her arms tighter, as if holding herself together. The rain speckled her shoulders, clung to her curls, but she didn’t move.
“I waited,” she said. “At first. Every day I stared at the road like you’d walk back through it. I told myself your silence meant you were busy, building something worth sharing with me.”
“I was afraid,” he admitted. “Afraid I’d become too different. That the boy you loved was gone.”
Her laugh was soft, bitter. “And instead of letting me decide, you chose for both of us.”
Damian nodded slowly. “I didn’t know how to bring the man I’d become back to the girl I left behind.”
She looked away again, blinking up at the dark sky. “So what do you want now? Closure? Forgiveness? You think one walk in the rain can change a decade?”
“I don’t want closure,” he said. “I want a beginning.”
Selena’s expression shifted, her walls faltering just slightly.
“I thought about you every day,” he said. “Even when I was surrounded by power and wealth. Especially then. Because none of it ever felt like home. Not without you.”
She studied him for a long moment, and he didn’t flinch beneath her gaze.
“Do you know what it felt like to be left behind?” she asked. “To see you on TV, on magazines, knowing I once meant everything to you—only to become nothing?”
He stepped closer, umbrella still in hand, shielding them both from the now-steady rain.
“You never meant nothing. I left, but I never forgot. I lost sight of who I was, but I never stopped loving who you were.”
She didn’t speak, but her eyes shimmered now.
“I’m not asking for the past,” he said. “I’m asking for now. For a conversation. A coffee. A walk. I don’t expect you to forgive me, but let me earn a place in your present.”
She exhaled shakily.
“And what about your world now?” she asked. “Your businesses, your empire? Where does a village girl fit into that?”
“You were never just a village girl to me. You were the reason I survived it.”
Silence fell between them, thick as the storm above.
The memories came in waves—mud on their feet as kids, hiding beneath mango trees, whispered dreams under starlit skies. He remembered the first time she kissed him. It was soft, sudden, just before he boarded a bus to the city for the first time. He never forgot the taste of her goodbye.
Now, standing before her again, it was as if fate had bent to give him one last chance.
“You haven’t changed much,” she said finally, her voice lower now. “Still think you can fix things with poetic lines and stormy eyes.”
Damian chuckled, for the first time in days. “Worked on you once.”
She shook her head, but there was a hint of a smile there now.
“You really want to try again?”
“Yes.”
“No assistants. No drivers. No PR?”
“Just me. And you.”
She looked down at her soaked heels, then back up at him. “Then walk me to my door. Old-school.”
He opened the umbrella above them and offered her his arm. She hesitated… then took it.
They walked together toward her car, the rain gentler now, like the sky, too, had begun to hope.
Each step was awkward, hesitant, but real.
Not a rekindling.
A rediscovery.
A breath between storms.
And as they stood in front of her car door, Selena glanced at him again.
“One dinner,” she said. “No promises.”
“One dinner,” he echoed. “And a thousand hopes.”
And when she slipped inside and closed the door, Damian didn’t move for a long time.
Because for the first time in years… he wasn’t chasing ghosts.
He was following something real.
Something he thought he’d lost forever.
- Writer
