Ten Thousand Raindrops Between Us

For the school anniversary, Christian Cobb was invited back to give a speech. While he was clicking through old photos, his finger landed on a video by mistake.

There he was at eighteen, the evening wind in his hair, grinning straight into the camera as he made his confession.

From now on, every painting I make is for you. Only you.

"I love you. Heaven and earth as my witness."

Gasps rippled across the rows below. Half the room turned to look at me, eyes full of envy.

"From high school sweethearts to married. That's too sweet!"

The next second, the camera flipped, freezing on a girl's flushed cheeks.

The face on the screen wasn't mine. It was my best friend, Stephanie Fox.

For that name, the Christian Cobb of those younger years had told me too many lies to count.

He sent me to the copy room to fetch test papers so he could ride his bike and take Stephanie down to the riverfront to watch the sunset.

He told me to wait at home for him on the weekend to watch a movie, so he could go to the theater with Stephanie and see the artsy film she loved.

He lied to me about the fall trip so he could spend a whole day at the amusement park alone with Stephanie.

Christian stepped up and closed the video, explaining with an even face, "Sorry. Hit it by accident."

But before he tapped it off, his gaze held on the screen for several seconds.

In those few seconds, the boy of eighteen was smiling with nothing held back, and there was only one person in his eyes.

The thirty-year-old man standing under the spotlight now was steady, restrained, not a crack anywhere.

I thought of the night we got legally married, his lips on my forehead.

"Miranda Young, everything in the past is behind me now. From now on, I won't lie to you again."

But Christian, how is it you've lied again?

During the Q&A, a bold underclassman lifted her microphone.

"Chris, could you tell us about your first love in high school? I heard it caused quite a stir back then."

The hall went still for a beat.

Christian lowered his eyes and tapped the desk twice with his fingers.

"That's all in the past."

His voice was light, like he was discussing some old news that didn't matter.

But the microphone was sensitive, and that faint sigh he hadn't meant anyone to catch carried through the whole room.

"You have to look forward."

A murmur rose around me.

My phone buzzed in my bag.

I looked down. A text from Stephanie.

Mira, I'm back.

I turned the phone over and pressed it screen-down against my knee.

When the speech ended, Christian came down off the stage. I stood and caught up, and the two of us walked out of the hall side by side.

"That was an accident earlier. I already deleted the video."

I was about to speak when my phone buzzed again.

"Free to get dinner sometime? It's been so long. I never even gave you two a wedding gift. Let me make it up to you!"

I looked down and replied to Stephanie. Sure.

When I looked up again, Christian was already two meters ahead.

In my memory, there were always two meters between us.

When it was the three of us, Christian always walked shoulder to shoulder with Stephanie, and I trailed behind.

Stephanie said she wanted to go up to the rooftop, so Christian went up to the rooftop with her.

Stephanie said she wanted a latte, so Christian skipped the last study period to go buy it.

Wherever Stephanie went, Christian followed.

I was like a shadow, two meters behind the two of them.

Later Stephanie went abroad, and I thought we'd finally walk side by side.

But we never did.

"Miranda."

"What are you spacing out for?"

He'd turned back to call me from up ahead.

The red glow of the anniversary banner washed over his face, softening his edges.

For just a moment, I half-saw the seventeen-year-old Christian.

The boy who'd climb the school wall to buy roasted chestnuts because Stephanie said one word,

the boy who'd break someone's brow bone to settle a score for Stephanie,

with a fire always burning in his eyes.

But now his gaze was calm and mild, and nothing could stir it.

It hit me all at once: I would never again see the Christian Cobb who loved someone with nothing held back.

The car was quiet.

Christian never liked music when he drove, but today, strangely, he'd connected the Bluetooth.

The instant the intro started, my shoulders went stiff. It was "Clear Skies."

Stephanie Fox's favorite song.

At our senior graduation party, Christian had sat on the stage with a guitar and sung the whole thing.

When he got to the line "Somehow we get to love one more day," his gaze went out over the crowd and landed, with perfect aim, on the seat at the edge of the third row.

Stephanie was sitting right there.

"Did you know Stephanie's coming back?"

I kept my eyes on the street sliding past the window, and made my voice as casual as I could.

The hand on the wheel went still.

"No."

It took him a while to answer.

Outside, the neon signs slipped by frame by frame, and I noticed the wedding ring was gone from his finger. I didn't know when he'd taken it off.

I swallowed past the catch in my throat. "Tonight, at the reunion. Can we make it public?"

Three years.

Christian and I had been legally married for three years. No photo of us together posted anywhere, no public acknowledgment.

Countless times I'd wanted to bring up going public, and every time I'd swallowed it back down.

He ruffled my hair. "Up to you."

The reunion that night was set at a restaurant nearby.

Before we got out, Christian reached over and smoothed the loose hair by my ear.

"What's wrong? You don't look so good."

Before I could say anything, I heard heels behind us.

"Chris. Mira."

Stephanie stood three steps away, white dress, long hair, exactly the way she'd looked at seventeen.

She looked at Christian, and he looked at her.

The moment their eyes met, the air froze.

"Long time, Christian." Stephanie spoke first, her voice a little hoarse.

"Yeah. Long time." His throat moved.

I stood off to the side, watching them hold each other's gaze across those three steps in silence.

The glass door threw back the reflection of all three of us, with that invisible line forever running between me and them.

The three of us walked in side by side.

In the private room, the old classmates erupted. "No way! Stephanie's back? My whole youth, right here! Don't tell me they're still together!"

"Honestly, after all these years, Christian and Stephanie still look best standing next to each other..."

Stephanie laughed and waved a hand. "We just ran into each other. Don't be ridiculous."

At the table, the conversation circled around and around, and in the end it came right back to high school.

Someone who'd had a few drinks said, "Seriously, Christian chased you so hard back then, it was the talk of the school. Any chance it's still on?"

A pair of chopsticks knocked against the rim of a bowl, and for a second I drifted somewhere else.

Someone tossed it over to me. "Mira, you're Stephanie's best friend. Give us the inside scoop. Are they a secret thing, or just two long-lost lovebirds?"

I opened my mouth.

I'm married to him. The words turned over on my tongue a few times, and in the end I swallowed them back.

"I really wouldn't know."

The words had barely left me when Christian set down his water glass.

The base of it clicked against the table, sharp.

"Actually, Mira and I are already"

"I came back for a marriage alliance..."

Stephanie cut him off, her eyes sweeping over me before settling back on his face.

"There's nothing left between him and me."

Christian paused, then picked up the bottle in front of him and slowly poured himself a glass.

"You're getting married? Was it... arranged by the family?"

Stephanie smiled. "What? I can't be marrying for love?"

He didn't press any further. He tipped his head back and drained the glass.

I didn't read any further.

I picked up the phone and muttered, "Going to the restroom," then pushed the door open and all but fled.

At the far end of the hallway I leaned against the wall, and it took a long time before my breathing settled.

It was only in the car that I realized I'd grabbed the wrong phone. It was Christian's.

The instant I unlocked it, his text messages popped open.

The newest thread had no contact name saved, just a blank where a name should be.

The last message was from two days ago.

Chris, I'm coming back.

A long while passed before he replied: It's been raining lately. Bring an umbrella.

How did you know?

My hand hurts.

I stared at that line, and slowly my eyes began to sting.

Every time it rained, Christian's right hand ached.

An old injury, left behind by the accident.

That rainy night after graduation, Christian had driven out to chase down Stephanie, who was about to leave the country, and crashed the car.

Nerve damage. He could never paint again.

There was a time he'd sketched Stephanie once a day, filling whole books with her.

Afterward those sketchbooks were sealed away along with the injury, and he never mentioned painting again.

I was the one who saw him through rehab.

Through every night of nerve pain, through every surgery and follow-up.

And in time he got better.

Later, in the hospital garden, with the setting sun stretching our shadows long across the ground, he said,

"Miranda, let's give it a try."

I thought he was trying to love me.

Only now do I understand. Maybe he was only trying to let himself off the hook, to let go of a love so fierce it could never quite be put out.

The cab driver glanced at me in the rearview mirror. "Where to, miss?"

I opened my mouth and found I couldn't say the home I shared with Christian.

Was that home still mine?

It was eleven at night before Christian came back.

He carried a faint smell of liquor and perfume, the white-tea scent Stephanie always wore.

"Why didn't you turn on the lights?"

He flicked on the entryway light just as I was curled up on the couch.

There was ibuprofen on the coffee table. My cramps had started in the afternoon and hadn't let up since.

"Not feeling well?"

He came over and pressed the back of his hand to my forehead.

I said nothing, and turned my head away from his hand.

"Miranda, let me take you to the hospital."

He crouched down and looked up at me.

"You've been drinking," I said.

Just stating a fact.

He rarely drank, except at work functions.

"Stephanie's really getting married"

"Christian, I'm tired."

I cut him off and pushed away the hand he'd laid on my shoulder.

At two in the morning, the pain woke me.

The reunion group chat was lively in the dead of night.

Did you guys hear? Stephanie's coming back for a marriage alliance this time. Her family's company hit a cash-flow crisis, and the guy she's marrying is fifteen years older than her

No wonder she said at dinner tonight that there was "no chance with Christian anymore." It was so sad to hear!! Is the couple I shipped really gonna end like this?!

After things broke up tonight I saw Christian and Stephanie talking at the end of the hallway. No idea what they said, but both their eyes were red.

Wait, did anyone notice Christian had what looked like a ring mark on his ring finger? The kind you only get from wearing a wedding ring for years.

!! Seriously?? Who'd he marry??

No idea. It was never made public.

It wouldn't be Miranda, would it? She seemed kind of off.

The tears slid silently into the pillow, and I got up and walked out of the room.

The living room was pitch dark, except for that study door, sealed shut for years, now standing ajar.

I pushed it open, and when the light came on, I froze where I stood.

The whole room was full of paintings.

Sketches, watercolors, oils.

They covered all four walls, large and small, hundreds of faces layered over one another, every single one the same woman.

Stephanie Fox.

Stephanie smiling, Stephanie looking down, Stephanie with her hair in a ponytail, Stephanie in a school uniform

Every expression, every flicker across her face, Christian had remembered it all.

Each one was signed in the bottom right corner, dated, spanning from seventeen years old to yesterday.

The newest was at the top of the easel, the paint not yet dry.

In it she stood at an airport exit, pulling a suitcase, sunlight falling across her face.

I reached out and touched the painting.

Indigo oil came away on my fingertip.

Like a nail, driven hard into my heart.

A room sealed shut for years had been opened again, for Stephanie Fox.

Christian, who'd sworn he would never paint again, had picked up the brush again, for Stephanie Fox.

Every piece of evidence pointed to the same answer.

Christian had never loved me.

The next day, I couldn't get out of bed for the pain.

Christian canceled the dinner at the old house, hung up the phone, and brought me warm honey tea.

"Drink it while it's hot."

He sat on the edge of the bed, slid his fingers under the blanket, and kneaded my stomach with just the right pressure.

His palm was warm. I drifted off, half-conscious, and in the dream I was back on the high school field at seventeen.

I worked up the courage. "Christian, in your heart, who am I?"

In the dream he froze for a second, then pulled his mouth into a smile. "Miranda, you're someone very important to me."

Half-asleep, half-awake, I held onto his hand and asked the question that had puzzled me for years.

"Christian did you ever love me?"

He went still for a moment.

Then I felt him lean down, his warm breath brushing the edge of my ear.

"Why ask that all of a sudden?"

"Love? That's a strange thing to ask."

Christian said he'd go make me some cinnamon dumplings, and I got up and walked out of the room.

The laptop sat open on the coffee table, the screen frozen on a transfer page.

A wire of over a hundred million, into the company owned by Stephanie's family.

In the notes field it said: A pleasure doing business.

But I knew it wasn't business.

It was Christian helping her.

Helping her escape a marriage she didn't love, helping her hold on to the family company, helping her do everything she needed done.

I looked at it calmly, and felt only that it was exactly what I'd expected.

When it came to Stephanie Fox, wasn't Christian always like this, holding nothing back?

A text message popped up in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Chris, it's thundering again.

How is Southport just like London, the rain never stops? Does your hand hurt?

Lightning split the sky outside, washing the living room a sickly white.

Christian came out of the kitchen carrying the bowl of cinnamon dumplings.

"Eat it while it's hot. Add more sugar if it's not sweet enough."

"Something urgent's come up at the company."

He set the bowl down, leaned over, and kissed my forehead. "Don't wait up tonight."

"Are you going to be with her?"

The thunderstorm night in senior year, he'd told me he was going back to his grandmother's. Later I found out he'd ridden his bike halfway across the city to be with Stephanie Fox.

She was afraid of thunder, and he'd stay with her all night long.

But he knew that after my mother left me on a thunderstorm night when I was five, I was afraid of thunder too.

His movements stopped.

Thunder rolled across the sky, and the window glass hummed with it.

"Miranda"

"Are you really going to come back?"

"You said you wouldn't lie anymore."

I held onto his cuff.

That stretch of dark blue shirt fabric crumpled in my grip, then slowly loosened.

He crouched down and cupped my face.

His thumb brushed the corner of my eye, where it had gone wet.

"Don't think too much." He said it softly. "I promise, I'll be back before ten."

I listened to the elevator carry him down, and I thought of all the years before, all the times Christian had lied to me and left me behind for Stephanie's sake.

I never understood it. We were the ones who grew up together.

In preschool he was the one who pulled the blanket over me at nap time. In grade school he stood between me and anyone who picked on me. The week before our placement exams he copied out a whole notebook of notes for me.

The years between us were so much longer than the years between them. But in his heart the weight of it fell the opposite way.

I thought of Stephanie too, sitting across from me with a latte in her hands, swearing it to my face:

"Mira, I knew ages ago that you liked Christian! And honestly, I don't like him at all. How could I ever want someone you want? Don't worry. I'll get him for you."

Pushing through the cramps, I grabbed my keys and went downstairs.

The rain was so heavy I could barely see the road; the wipers were on full and the windshield was still a blur.

From a distance I saw it. Christian's car parked outside Stephanie's building, hazard lights blinking.

The two of them were standing in the rain, soaked through.

Stephanie tipped her face up. "Tonight's the last time you'll ever come for me, isn't it?"

Christian didn't answer. But he didn't shake his head either.

"Christian, does your hand hurt?"

"I'm used to it."

"But I'm not used to it. Alone in London, my heart hurt so much. Do you know why I went abroad? Because of Mira. She liked you, she liked you so much. She was my best friend. So I chose to step aside for her."

Rainwater ran down the line of his jaw. His voice came low. "Then why did you come back?"

Stephanie leaned in a little, her forehead resting against his shoulder.

"Because I couldn't let go. And you? Have you let go? Or are you still hating me?"

The wind blew the rain in at a slant. Christian raised his hand to her soaked back,

lowered his head, his chin against the wet crown of her hair.

"Stephanie, you know it. Hating you is the one thing I'll never be able to do."

They held each other tight in the rain, as if the whole world for each of them was the other.

Stephanie lifted her head, and her gaze cut through the curtain of rain and met mine.

Those beautiful eyes filled slowly with shock, then with tears, then with apology.

A long moment passed before her lips moved.

"I'm sorry."

Three words, and the rain swallowed most of them.

But I saw it clearly.

So from the very start, the two people I had treasured had only ever used me as a stepping stone in their long, tangled history.

The tears came, and at the same moment the umbrella slipped from my hand.

The long black umbrella hit the puddle with a sound.

Christian turned his head, Stephanie still in his arms.

The rain split us into two halves.

His expression froze on his face.

"Miranda"