22.
He said, Things must be bad if we’re talking about the weather. As if it doesn’t matter.
— But that day you both stopped under the arches where someone had left flowers and he wanted to kiss you, that day was spring warm and the sky was blue like a promise.
— The day of drizzle when you both said goodbye at the car, you didn’t want to go but he left so easily you thought he didn’t care.
— When you saw him cross the road on Pulteney Bridge it was sticky humid, shorts and t-shirt hot, and you wondered if he’d seen you but you let him walk away, let the moment go.
— And now, as you walk through the rain, these thoughts of weather come to you so clearly you have to write them on your phone, your umbrella wedged beneath your chin and the rain pelting white, your feet wet and jeans soaked to the knee.
— When you get home you’ll hang up your clothes, leave the umbrella to dry. Try not to feel the cold.
So maybe he’s right that the weather doesn’t matter anymore.
Sally Gander 