Moonlight. It penetrated her skin. She looked up to sky and let the night seep through her pores, filling her lungs. She sighed, contemplating for a moment the fact that others were normally indoors at this hour. Only for a moment. She didn't let it bother her, the solitude. Some people are better off alone.
"April?" came the shadow of a voice from behind. She turned slowly, not wanting to see the look of sympathy superimposed on the speaker's face. She was never much for pity. "It's time to go home."
His blue eyes were as dark as the sky behind those glasses. Darker than his hair. Nonetheless, April let her auburn hair hang in her face, as if were a mask: she hadn't been crying, but she didn't want him to see. It was the emptiness. It created a greater barrier than the thin layer of air and the silence between them.
She crossed her arms over her chest, leaning, slouched against the wall. "I'm not ready to go home."
"You don't have to be like this, April. People are looking for you. Despite the fact that you may not mind getting pneumonia on a night like this, other people do. They actually care..." The remaining words seemed to catch in his mouth and he could not say more. He turned them over in his mouth and mind at once, sampling their flavor. He must have decided he didn't like their consistency, for he remained silent.
"Let's go then, it's getting late," April responded ambivalently. She pushed herself up from the garden wall. "What's with the umbrella?" She stared at the black folded apparatus the boy held in his hand.
"It's going to rain. Why else would I carry one?" Alex smirked. April looked up at the sky. Whatever, Alex, the sky's so dark you can't even tell if there's any cloud cover, she thought smugly. He confidently began opening the umbrella. "Don't worry, I'll share." He chuckled.
"You're crazy..." April began to say, but did not finish her sentence. Not before she felt the first droplet of rain splatter against her scalp, running along the strands of her fiery hair. Cooling her temper. The echo of thunder drowned out the pollution of silence between them, clearing the air. Their sonorous laughter was accompaniment to the rain's music.
"I told you…I know everything."
Whether or not he knew they were being watched from the shadows is questionable.
