Saving Rain

by Kelsey Kingsley

Mopping the bathroom floor was dirty, disgusting labor, and I was sure it was understandable when I said I didn’t care much for it. But it was quiet work—monotonous and relaxing—and it gave me a lot of time to think. To remember a life I’d once had and fantasize about the one I probably would never have at all. I thought about Gramma and Grampa. How disappointed they might’ve been to see where I’d been living all these years and the things I’d done to put me there. But sometimes, I thought, You know what? Maybe they wouldn’t be all that disappointed after all. Maybe they’d even be proud of me. Not for the things I’d done—of course not—but for what I’d done since I had gotten there. I thought about Billy’s mom and the grief and pain she lived with every day. The broken heart I’d single-handedly stuffed inside her aching chest. Every now and then, I considered the possibility that, Hey, maybe she doesn’t hate me as much today as she did yesterday, and that pipe dream filled me with the smallest amount of hope. But the reality was, I knew she wouldn’t ever care about me again. Not until the day I was also dead. But mostly, I thought about Billy. Where he had gone wrong and how he was also to blame for the choices he’d made in his life. And, no, I couldn’t say I was mad at him, even given the situation I was in because—let’s be real—I would’ve ended up behind bars eventually, whether or not he had died. But I was sad. Sad he wasn’t still around. Sad that my friend was gone. Sa...