A/N: I love the rain. Rain is my inspiration for this. That and a true story about a woman who went naked into a night-storm to prove to her lover that if she was courageous then he should be courageous enough to marry her. She died and he died from a broken heart or committed suicide or something. I'd love opinions on the ending of this story, especially if you hate it. If you hate it give me reasons. Love you all if you reply.

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The rain washed over my face in cool graceful waves. I relished the feeling, wiping my hands up over my face and along to smooth down my now-black hair. The sky was dark and the storm was coming in, and I had taken to standing outside in the before-downpour, the pain consuming me being tempered by the deluge.

I couldn’t believe she’d left me. Left me alone after all this time. We’d been together so fucking long and all to nowt. She didn’t love me anymore. All because of her new boyfriend. What was so special about him? Huh? So he didn’t need the rain to have black hair, so he didn’t need tinted contacts to have silver eyes. She was no better than I was.

He was though, and wasn’t that the point? I may be a little chubby, and so may she be, but he is perfect. From the top of his plateau-ed shoulders to the soles of his lean feet he is an Adonis. It was no wonder she chose him over me.

What did I have? Thick legs and a short neck, that’s what. That’s all. Oh, true, I knew I was cute, with a small nose and wide blue eyes. But apart from my breasts I had nothing to make her stay.

So what, is that my fault? That I was never enough for her? I think she lied to me! She never loved me – she never could have. She was never … turned that way, you know?

She lured me in because she was beautiful. She made me stay because she was funny. She hurt me because I let her. She never loved me because God made her…

Straight.

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Shardonay fall to the ground as the pain completed her. It was a pure, raw emotion, beautifully dressed by the dark rain tumbling over her small frame.

Her anguish took voice as her wet mouth parted, crying to the wind of loss and hatred.

If Shardonay thought about it she found that this wasn’t the first time that a woman had left her for a man. Nor had she never been left for another woman. And true, she herself had broken relationships in the past to the same end.

But to the woman, nearing thirty-seven, the thought that she may now not keep a partner was frightening. She loathes the implication that she may be … alone.

So she seeks more, and the more she seeks the quicker they leave – the worse they are. She misses the warning signs. It isn’t important why anymore. None of them matter why.

Because this one hurts. This one is betrayal – it strikes right at the core of everything Shardonay holds dear and everything she cherishes about herself, in her femininity and her whole womanhood.

She had been left for a man. Again. It had been hard enough to recover in the past, but now, for some reason … now hurts so much more.

She tells herself it is the age catching up with her, but she knows it is more than that. This woman had been different. This one she’d believed in. She had trusted, and hoped…

Oh, hoped so much! That perhaps this one would be the real one. The only the one. The One.

It hasn’t worked out that way, and now Shardonay sits in the cold, listening for her heartbeat but hearing only her own screams.

It’s so cold now – it’s dark and her hair must be invisible in the night. The wind whips it into her face and she sinks lower to the ground, brushing at the small hailstones peppering her bare arms. She can’t feel her body shivering. She thinks she might die here.

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Claud closed her book, and looked out at the early morning. The calm after the storm was so utterly peaceful that she thought she might die of the happiness Robert coming into her life had brought.

She felt terrible though, for the way she had treated Shardonay. The poor woman. She was so much more vulnerable than she knew herself to be. She was likely to have done herself some harm.

Out of sheer concern, Claud picked up her telephone and punched in the number that had once been her own. There was no response; no receiver and she silently cursed Shardonay for refusing to ever get an answering service.

She left a note for Robert and left the house, jumping into a taxi after walking down to the intersection at the end of the street. She belted out the address that had once been her own.

She paid the driver and tipped him well for his haste, obviously noting her slight distress. Claud approached the door and knocked. Silence within. She tried the door and it swung ominously open. As she walked through the house calling for Shardonay she was filled with an ethereal sense of dread.

Finally, she left the house’s ground floor for the garden. And there, just beyond the patio, she saw Shardonay’s body lying, slumped on the ground.

She hastened to her side.

Fin.

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