The Day I Heard You Knock From The Other Side Of The Rain

I heard you knock once softly and then again more carefully and by the time I reached the door I knew you were already gone and that whatever part of you had come looking for me would not wait to be invited inside. The hallway was empty and cool and the sound of rain through the stairwell window filled the space where your presence had just been.

I stood there with my hand still on the handle feeling the echo of that knock travel through my bones. It was not loud. It was not urgent. It was unmistakably you. The kind of sound made by someone who knew exactly where they were and exactly how much they were allowed to ask for.

The romance had ended before it could take shape and I felt that ending settle into me like a quiet bruise even before I understood when it had begun.

I met you during the long season when the rain did not stop. The city stayed damp and reflective and everything felt slightly out of alignment as if the streets themselves were remembering something else. You were standing under the awning of a closed cinema watching the rain hit the pavement with an attention that felt intimate.

You did not notice me at first. When you did you startled and apologized as if you had been somewhere far away. Your voice carried the sound of distance. You asked if the rain always behaved like this here. I said only when it had something to say.

We walked together without deciding to. The rain softened and then returned heavier. Water ran down your hair and soaked the shoulders of your coat. You did not seem to mind. You said weather liked you. That it followed you sometimes longer than expected.

We took shelter in a small cafe with fogged windows and the smell of wet wool. We sat across from each other nursing hot cups neither of us drank quickly. Conversation unfolded cautiously. You spoke as if testing each sentence for stability. I listened for what you avoided.

There was a pressure around you that I could not name then. Like the air just before thunder. When you laughed it sounded like relief. When you fell quiet it felt deliberate.

After that we found each other often when the rain fell hardest. At bus stops. Under bridges. In doorways not meant for lingering. You said you preferred the moments when the world thinned. When sound softened and edges blurred. You said rain helped with that.

The first time I noticed something wrong was the night the rain fell upward. We were standing by the river watching the lights stretch across the surface when droplets began lifting instead of falling. You froze. Your breath caught. Around us no one else seemed to notice.

You told me then that rain was a door as much as a weather pattern. That sometimes it connected places that should not touch. You said you did not mean to cross so often but the city had begun to remember you and that made leaving harder.

I asked where you went when you left. You said elsewhere. The word felt insufficient. You said sometimes it was the same place at a different time. Sometimes a different version of the same street. Sometimes a memory that refused to fade.

You never used the word ghost but I felt it hovering near us. Instead you said traveler. And sometimes mistake.

The night you first came to my apartment the rain arrived without clouds. The sky stayed clear and still and yet water fell in steady sheets. You stood in my doorway dripping onto the floor apologizing as if the weather were your fault.

Inside the lights flickered. Shadows doubled. The windows fogged immediately. You said you should not stay long. I said nothing and handed you a towel. Our fingers brushed and the room shifted subtly as if leaning closer.

We sat far apart at first. You watched the rain track itself across the glass. You said too much proximity anchored you. That staying too close to one person in one place pulled you out of alignment. I asked what happened if you stayed anyway. You said pieces of you began to belong where they should not.

Later when you slept on the couch you did not breathe the way other people did. Your chest rose but not always on time. I lay awake listening to the rain feeling the cost of wanting you.

The knocking began weeks later. Always on rainy days. Sometimes at my door. Sometimes on the window. Sometimes on the inside of the walls as if someone gently reminding the house you were there. You said it was not you exactly. Just the echo of you checking its position.

You grew quieter after that. More careful. You watched me with an intensity that felt like counting. When I asked what you were measuring you said moments. How many were left that belonged only to us.

The night everything broke the rain came suddenly violent and loud. You arrived soaked and shaking. You said the door had opened too wide. That something was calling you through every drop of water at once. You said if you stayed you might scatter beyond repair.

We stood in my hallway with water pooling around our feet. The light flickered. The knocking started again louder now from every surface. I reached for you without thinking. This time you did not pull away.

Your arms around me felt solid and urgent. The rain inside the room intensified as if the walls were no longer sure what they were meant to contain. You buried your face in my shoulder and whispered my name as if trying to anchor yourself to it.

I knew then what the choice would cost. Holding you meant letting you go sooner. Letting you go meant living with the sound of rain forever altered.

When you stepped back your outline had begun to blur at the edges. You said thank you for sheltering me. Not the apartment. Me.

You kissed my forehead gently deliberately as if memorizing the shape of the moment. Then you stepped into the rain that had gathered impossibly in the center of the room and dissolved into it.

After that the rain returned to behaving normally. The city dried out. The knocking stopped. I learned to live with the silence it left behind.

Until the day I heard you knock from the other side of the rain.

It was light that day barely more than mist. I opened the door too late. Only the sound remained. Soft careful familiar.

I stood there listening until the rain passed. Even now when storms arrive I pause by the door my hand hovering knowing that some love exists only in the asking. And that sometimes opening the door is not the kinder choice.