My grandfather always says a fire is easiest to start on a windy day, but I discovered that a relationship works better on a rain-soaked afternoon. Our first date was on a drizzly Wednesday after classes, the smell of damp earth clinging to the streets, but my heart swelled in my chest like an overwatered flower pot. Rachel laughed when I spilled coffee all over her books on our second meetup, a careless, genuine sound that shook something loose in me like raindrops on a tin roof. For hours afterward, water dripped from the umbrella outside her dorm, echoing a sense of hesitant harmony I wasn't prepared for.
2