Rainfall (Part Two) [A Link To Part One Inside]

[NowStop]

AUTHOR's NOTE: Part One: Fate is here.

I have Part Two mapped out, I will try to update it regularly.

As always, feel free to please comment below.

*****

Ring Ring

So it turns out that you cannot punch someone in the face without getting arrested.

Ring Ring

And going to jail.

Ring Ring

Even if takes two months to happen.

Ring Ri-

“A collect call from the jail, with your name on it? Seriously? And you call –me- after punching my boyfriend?”

“Yeah, you’re the only one that I knew would come bail me at out at 2-“ I checked the overhead clock – “2:37 AM. And I don’t want my family to know, you know how my parents are.”

I twisted the cord of the pay phone around me awkwardly as I cradled the black handset against my ear.

“Fuck you. Again. You punched my boyfriend.” Her voice was seething with radiant anger and I knew that she was PISSED. Rightfully so.

I winced briefly. “Yeah, you’re right. But. You owe me.”

“Fuck you.”

The line went dead, and the sound of the dialtone began to buzz in my ear. I turned around, adjusted the awkward blue collar of my jail-issued cotton garb shirt, and shuffled my way out of the phone room as another inmate took my place at the station.

Several hours soon crawled by, and all I could find to do to pass the time was to play cards in the common room with other people who were serving out sentences for minor bullshit like driving without a valid driver’s license, stealing from Wal-Mart, and one guy who apparently killed a gator without a permit. I didn’t even know that they had gators in California.

“Man, I hate Spades.” I finally said after making my third book in six games as I proceeded to rearrange the cards in my hand to try to throw off the two people I was playing against with my ‘partner’.

“Well, what there ain’t a whole hell of a lot to do-.” Gator-man started to say with a distinctive drawl coming from his lips, when he was rudely interrupted.

“Alex? You’ve made bail.”

I perked up, my head jerking in the direction of the C.O. who was clearly manning the evening shift and had walked into the room to deliver the news.

“Who? How?”

He ignored my questions and instead had me walk with him back to where I was checked in. I obtained my clothes, my watch, my wallet, and my keys, and I was then unceremoniously dumped outside.

And…There she was, her hair illuminated by the setting sun behind her as she stood with one hand on her hip, the other yanking an bud out of her ear. The sky surrounding the sun was clouding up, and I could just tell that it was threatening to rain.

“Fuck you,” she said as a way of greeting as I crossed the broken pavement towards her. “I am not talking to you. And I sure as fuck am not forgiving you. If you don’t show up for court, I’m going to hunt your ass down and fucking nail it to the wall. And there won’t be anything anyone can do to save you. Capice?”

I merely dry-swallowed and nodded as I crossed the cracked, old pavement of the parking lot towards her and her old clunker, scarcely believing that she had actually shown up.

“Get into the fucking car.”

I got into the front passenger seat, and I saw that it was as messy and disorganized as ever. There were In-n-Out Double Double wrappers, empty Coke cans everywhere, discarded and melted makeup containers, an old metal flask, and some god-awful purple stain right beneath where my feet were from that time when we tried to make alcoholic purple Kool-Aid while going down the highway at 85 miles an hour in a 65.

“You were right. I fucking owed you and that’s the only reason I bailed you out. And I again had to lie to my boyfriend about what I was doing, and I am again seeing you despite promising him that I would never do that or talk to you again. Jesus fucking Christ.” She moved the sunvisor down to block the setting sunlight from blinding her, and she pointedly refused to make eye contact with me as she turned around to back out of the space and then head down the road.

“…Thank you Autumn.” I said after a few moments, my voice barely a tinny whisper that could be heard over the grinding sound of her car every time she braked just a bit too late for a light.

She pulled her hair back with one hand and locked it into a messy ponytail with a black hairband as she drove with her knees.

“Whatever. We are now even.”

~fin Chapter One: Collect Calling