The wind howled through the narrow streets, wrapping itself around the corners of dark buildings like a predator, relentless and cruel. I pulled my jacket tighter around my body, though it did little to ward off the biting cold. The storm had arrived suddenly, as storms often did — unexpected and violent, with no regard for the unprepared. The rain slashed at my face in sharp, stinging bursts, blurring the world around me into a smear of gray and black.
I didn't mean to be outside. I didn't mean to be walking in the middle of this chaos. But something about the storm had drawn me in, like the pull of a memory I couldn’t shake. Maybe it was the quiet before the first gust of wind, that stillness that had felt too much like her silence—the silence that used to fill the months after she had left, thick and suffocating. I’ve been walking for hours now, lost in the streets of the city and in the maze of my own thoughts.
It reminded me of the last time I was out in a storm, during a freezing winter night in front of the Notre Dame. This time, there was no snow, and – more important – I was sober.
The rain poured down harder, drenching my hair and dripping into my eyes. I thought of her again—of Rosie. Her name tasted bitter in my mind, like the last sip of stale coffee, cold and unwanted. She’d been the storm for some time, the whirlwind that had torn through my life and left me hollowed out, trying to piece myself together. Her laughter had been intoxicating once, lighting up rooms and drawing me in like a moth to a flame. But there had always been something else beneath it, something sharp that cut deep when her words turned cruel, when her affection turned to biting sarcasm.
I had loved her, or at least I believed I did. But love, as I have come to understand, was not always the soft, gentle thing people spoke about. It could be jagged and wild, like the wind now whipping against me, relentless and unforgiving. Love could destroy.
Another gust of wind slammed into me, nearly knocking me off balance. I stumbled, catching myself against the side of a building. For a moment, I stood still, my breath coming in ragged gasps as the storm raged around me. I thought about the last time I had seen her. We had been lying on the bed. Suddenly, she had gotten up and told me she had to leave.
Since then, my thoughts had wandered to her often and most of the time, I have missed her. This time, something cracked open inside of me, and I saw her for what she really was. Or maybe I saw myself for the first time, the way I have been clinging to her, as if she could fill the void inside me.
But she never could. She didn’t fit. Someone else did.
I felt the weight of that truth settling over me like the heavy clouds above, dark and inescapable. I have spent so long chasing after her, after the version of love I had convinced myself, we could have, that I had forgotten what it felt like to stand still, to breathe, to exist without her shadow hanging over me.
The rain came down harder now, soaking me to the bone. I wiped my face, though it was useless; the rain was endless, just like the thoughts of her that had plagued me all this time. But something was shifting inside me, something subtle and quiet, like the first break of dawn after a long, sleepless night.
I realized, as I stood there in the middle of the storm, that I was tired. Not just physically, though my body ached from the cold, but emotionally tired of carrying the weight of her, tired of reliving every sarcastic remark, every tender moment that had turned sour. I have been fighting this storm inside of me for too long, a storm I let her create and control.
But now, in the heart of this real storm, I understood. She was gone, and it was time to let her go. The winds howled louder, but I no longer flinched against them. The rain lashed at me, but I stood tall, letting the cold wash over me. I could feel the storm in my chest beginning to break, slowly but surely. The remnants of my love for her, twisted and toxic, were being stripped away by the rain, piece by piece, until all that was left was the raw truth.
She was my past.
And the future, I realized, was waiting at home, with our new cat.
I looked up, the storm still swirling above me, but my heart felt lighter than it had in a long time. The wind still howled, but it no longer sounded like her voice. It was just the wind. Just the rain. Just a storm.
I took a deep breath, my first real breath in what felt like forever, and began to walk forward, leaving the past behind.
When I returned home, Rosie was sitting in a chesterfield chair, in front of my girlfriend.
