Kiss the rain

It's no secret that our great city has suffered some funky weather happenings in the past year. 2008 was marked with the first ever tornado whipping through buildings and hotels downtown and narrowly missing my apartment building by a couple of streets.

2009 will be punctuated by the floods. Oh lord, the floods. Everything is always wet. My shoes, my hair, even my mail. If it wasn't for acid rain and the threat of sewage in the flood water, I wouldn't have to shower for two weeks now.

Sunday night, Christopher and I were watching TV when the rain started up again. We looked out of my french-door balcony and into the deafening whoosh of water. Christopher reached over and turned on my lamp to counteract the sudden darkness. The Nothing, as I still call it.

"Uh, can I stay here tonight and you just take me home on your way to work tomorrow?" he asked.

Um, a third night in a row with my delicious boyfriend? Let me think about that. "Sure," I shrugged.

"I like thunderstorms," he said.

"Me too."

I went to bed before he did. I'm not sure how much time had past before I had woken up to the scariest lightning storm I can remember. I haven't been scared of thunder and lightning since I was a little girl, but this was too close. The thunder would shake my safe apartment before the lightning was done illuminating the sky.

I laid in bed with the covers pulled up to my ears. With each flash! and crash!, I would jump a little.

My bedroom door creaked open and I peeked over the covers long enough to see Christopher's shadow tip toe in. He crawled on the bed with me and spooned me. I was so grateful to see him.

"You know that power box on the telephone pole outside your balcony?" he whispered in my ear. "The one you always joked about not being comfortable with it so close to your apartment? Lightning just struck it. I was standing on your balcony and all the hair on my body stood up." He shivered.

Another boom that you could feel through the floorboards struck. I flinched. "Are you scared?" he whispered again.

Christopher wrapped his arms around me so tightly that I was enveloped in him. He squeezed and I could feel my elbow tighten as my forearm pressed against my bicep. It was such a sturdy position the way he was holding me. Solid. Safe.

He kissed my back between my shoulder blades. "Don't be scared," he murmured. "I won't let anything bad happen to you."

I sort of got the feeling that he wasn't just talking about the lightning. At least that's what I was hoping.

The next morning the city was under water. Drivers were standing on the roofs of their cars on the downtown connector (by my old apartment—that place seems cursed) and were being rescued by BOATS and HELICOPTERS. A woman died drowning in her van. Roads were washed out. The road that connected my apartment to Christopher's was closed because a tree fell and crushed two cars driving by. Six Flags is still under water.

And I was safe.