The Rain Between Us

Lara had always considered herself practical. At nineteen, she worked part-time at a bookstore, attended university classes during the week, and planned nearly every hour of her life in a color-coded calendar. Her friends often joked that if the world ended, Lara would still find a way to organize the apocalypse into neat little categories. Princess was the opposite. Eighteen years old, unpredictable, and constantly chasing new adventures, she seemed to live according to no plan whatsoever. They met on a rainy Thursday afternoon. Lara stood beneath a bus shelter, balancing a stack of textbooks against her chest. The rain hammered the pavement while traffic crawled through the city. Then someone appeared beside her. A girl with dark curls, bright eyes, and a yellow jacket that somehow looked cheerful despite the storm. "That bus is twenty minutes late," the girl announced. Lara glanced up. "How do you know?" "I asked the driver from the last route." The stranger smiled. "I'm Princess." "Lara." Princess pointed toward the books. "You look like someone who studies too much." "You look like someone who doesn't study enough." Princess laughed. The sound was warm enough to make Lara smile despite herself. By the time the bus arrived, they had spent twenty minutes talking about everything from favorite movies to impossible travel dreams. When Princess sat beside her instead of taking one of the dozens of empty seats, Lara found herself oddly pleased. Neither of them knew it then. But that rainy afternoon would change both their lives.