—Baby Steps on a Rainy Day—
by K. M. Mackenzie

“It’s raining.”

Oh my God. He just talked to you! “Yup.” Try to look indifferent. How? Um... Stare at your nails!

“I think I forgot my umbrella.”

“Damn.” Okay, you can stop staring at your nails now. Oh for the love of God don’t you dare bite them.

“Yeah...” He nods his head as he drags the word out.

Now what?

I look down at my bag, half concealed by the desk. The zipper of the big pocket is open; the glory that is my pink, polka-dotted umbrella is poking out, practically glowing in anticipation.

Don’t say it. Don’t say it! “Wanna walk with me?” Damn it! You said it. You idiot. You’re going to be all tongue-tied for the entire half-hour walk. Dig a hole and bury yourself in it-

“Sure.”

I dig my fingers through my practically yellow hair. Curses on your genetic pool!

The bell sounds.

Um... okay! You can do this. Be interesting. It’s not that hard.

I follow him out of the classroom, the umbrella clutched lethally in one hand.

There’s a pile-up at the doors and people are pushing out the girls with the hairspray hair and the skimpy skirts. Little shrieks are sounding every few seconds as a result of this.

Well, don’t all talk at once!

Then Marnie Watson and her three followers come down the adjacent hallway and pretty much everyone turns to look at her. Even me. Even him.

She’s the prettiest girl in the school, you know? With wavy, chocolate-coloured hair, hazel eyes framed by thick dark lashes, perfectly bronzed long legs and impeccable fashion sense. She wouldn’t be caught dead with a pink, polka-dotted umbrella.

Serves you right for actually keeping the flaming thing.

I scowl.

Marnie notices, because everyone, including me, is still staring at her, which means that I’m actually scowling at her. Her eyes flash, and she’s going to bite me verbally, I know, but then she sees who I’m standing with and the hazel is suddenly smouldering. And not to me either. It’s him she wants.

N-duh!

She saunters over to us, all eyes following her shapely form, and proceeds to run her hands across one of his shoulders, up his neck and down his jaw line before the hands curl off his skin, ever graceful.

“Baby,” she purrs in greeting. No one hears but us three.

Double-curses on your genetic pool. Why can’t you look more like her? Then you’d be confident and talking to him wouldn’t be like fighting an avalanche so much as doing backstroke, for all you can swim.

Your conscience is a bitch, the part of my mind that sounds like him tells me.

Oh would you stop looking at her already? Just because she’s doing some fucked up tango doesn’t mean that you have to watch, even if it is with him.

“Marnie.” He says it carefully, but the gentleness skips over Marnie’s head and hits me in the face.

As if he’d care that you’re there. Even if he remembered your existence he wouldn’t stop playing with her.

Ignore it. The voice sounds like it’s warning me, teacher-like.

“I have to go, Marnie. I’ve gotta get home.”

Yeah, maybe he cares. But I doubt it.

“Oh, sure thing, darling.” Marnie extricates herself from him and saunters back down the hall to her hangers-on, making sure he hips practically rotate 360° with every step.

She must be trying so hard to look sexy that she’s walking slow-mo. For once, I have to agree.

“So how about that walk home?” he says, turning to me.

And so he didn’t forget about you.

“You armed?” he asks, a little half-smile pulling at his lips.

With an umbrella, if you wanna be specific. “And dangerous.” What a retard. I have nothing to say to you.

He grins like crazy and starts to shove and push through the crowd. I follow, leaving the umbrella by my side, half-open and prepared for the torrential rain outside.

My God his eyes are practically golden. And look, you’re totally lost for words. I so told you this would happen. Now you’re just going to waste this entire opportunity staring into his eyes instead of getting to know him.

...

Say something. Hell, can you even open your mouth?

It’s true that it’s shut tight. I take a deep breath through my nose, and count to ten while I hold the oxygen in my lungs. Then I exhale through my mouth to prove my conscience wrong.

Of course, just when I’m about to actually make some sound come out, he has to come and cut me off.

“What are you thinking?”

A little deep for, you know, THE FIRST CONVERSATION YOU’VE EVER HAD WITH HER.

“Uh... mostly it’s my conscience yelling at me.”

Cricket noise. He looks at me really strange.

You’re such an idiot. I don’t even know you. Why couldn’t I be inside Marnie’s head?

“Yeah, she keeps telling me to be more like Marnie Watson.”

“Wh-why would it... she want you to be like... Marnie?” He sounds surprised, but I am forgetting that my conscious isn't inside his head (fortunately for him).

I shrug. “Something about being able to talk to guys without swallowing her tongue.”

Then he did something fairly surprising. He burst out laughing.

“Does – your – conscience – have – a – name?” he bit out between huge guffaws of mirth.

“Uhmm... never really considered it.”

Amy. I so wanna be called Amy.

“Let’s called her-” Here the humour completely overtakes him and he nearly falls over with all the laughing and the not-breathing and the streaming tears and all. “-Warnie.”

Fat mumma say what?

Obviously she didn’t get it. But that is why I start laughing. “Okey-doke.” He gave me a look like ‘Did you seriously just say that?’. “She was all for Amy but I like Warnie.”

“Hm.. Marnie Watson. Warnie Matson.” He laughed some more and then we turned down my street.

Seriously, how could you call me, like, a guy’s name? And how does he know where you live? And doesn’t he fully have like a beautiful, black Mercedes back at the school parking lot?

Oh, piss off, Warnie.

“She'd better not hear about your field day with her name,” I point out, still chuckling a little. Neither of us want to specify which “she” we're laughing about.

We turn down my garden path and he walks me up to the veranda. I take the first step and turn around to him.

“Then it’ll be our little secret,” he says quietly, his low voice sounding sort of sexy, only with a whole lot of playful mixed in. He smiles into my eyes and kisses me on the forehead.

“Thanks for walking me,” I say after a moment's pause, still slightly frozen by the fact that his lips just touched my skin. Oh sweet baby Jesus. Never thought I'd see the day.

Well, it was only your forehead. Don’t let it get to you. It’s never going to happen.

It’ll happen, the part that sounds like him insists, like he’s talking to a child. He’s just taking baby steps on a rainy day.

-x-X-x-

a/n: I made a few amendments. Nothing major so don't go have a stroke about it. Or do. But don't blame me. Love ya. Love all your reviews, and all the hits guys. This is my most successful oneshot as of late!

ii: i finally made the you're your ammendment. Three cheers for Mackenzie!