As I Kissed Her in the Rain

As I Kissed Her in the Rain



Angels, the messengers of God. Everyone has heard of angels. One thing about angels, though... if they are the messengers of God, they can't stay in Heaven all the time, can they? Wouldn't they have to come to Earth to deliver the message?
An angel delivered a message to me once from God. When I thought no one could hear me when I prayed, God sent a messenger to show me how wrong I was. I had thought that love just wasn't going to happen for me. I was seventeen. I knew I was young, but... I had never fallen in love before. And by this point, it felt like I should have been. I thought that when I prayed for God to bless me with love, He couldn't hear me, because He was too busy listening to everyone else. But God heard me, alright. God heard me loud and clear.
I had a lot of stress at home. Dad ran out on us when I, my parents' youngest child, was only four. They had one other child, my older sister, Erica. She was eight, so she remembered how awful Dad was to Mom. But I was too young to remember. So my mom was a single mother for thirteen years. She didn't date, either. She said she felt like that would be irresponsible, and she said that she believed that once you were married, that person should be the only one you ever marry. Mom didn't love Dad anymore, and they weren't married anymore, either, but Mom didn't believe in being married more than once. But she was busy, with two kids and a job, and not having a man to help her with it. I never blamed her for me feeling left out. I knew she tried her hardest.
But most people with these problems have a girlfriend or boyfriend to go to for comfort. I didn't. I had never been in love before, and at the age of seventeen. I had given up on love by age fifteen, when I realized it would never really happen for me. But one day, there was a new girl at my school.
Her name was Jenna Kates. The minute I saw her, I had a crush on her. She was absolutely beautiful. But not like the other girls at school, that try to be beautiful by wearing tons of makeup and clothes that don't fit. She really was beautiful.
She had golden blonde hair with bright, beautiful, blue eyes. Everything about her was perfect-- not a single flaw. The moment I saw her, I think I saw what Heaven really was.
For a long time afterwards, I would spend my time drawing hearts in my notebook with JK + SP in it. My name was Shawn Peters. Because I was blowing off my schoolwork to draw fancy hearts with letters, my grades began to slip. I got in trouble with my mom. I started to focus a little more on my school work, and my grades improved a little more. I decided that I would never have a chance with someone like Jenna. So, I just gave up.
As it turned out, not only was she beautiful, but she didn't judge people. She talked to me one day. "Hey," she said.
I was shocked and nervous. "H- hey."
"What's your name?"
"Shawn."
"Hey, Shawn. Great name. I'm Jenna."
I was too nervous to say anything.
She laughed. "Are you nervous or something?" she asked in a sweet voice.
I couldn't find my voice. I could only stare.
She laughed again, not being mean, but being sweet. "It's okay; you don't have to be embarassed or anything."
"O-Okay."
She laughed. "Hey, Shawn, do you wanna go to the movies or something?"
At that moment, I think I wet myself.
Again, she laughed. "You know, like a... date?"
"Sure!" I said, maybe just a little too happily.
She laughed. "Okay. Is Friday good for you?"
"Yeah, Friday's good."
"Okay. Walk there with me after school?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. See you then."

She walked away, looking back to smile at me with the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen. I was too surprised to cheer or even smile. I could only stare--mouth agape-- at Jenna walking away. My heart stopped. I smiled, with every single muscle in my face, and no matter what, I couldn't make that smile go away. Not that I wanted to. I rushed home to tell my mom and call my sister (she was twenty-one and in college), and then went to my room to count the seconds until Friday. The whole time, that smile stayed on my face.
For the rest of my life, that smile would never go away.
When Friday came at last, I was shaking uncontrolably all day. I couldn't concentrate on my schoolwork. I kept looking over at Jenna or at the clock. When the end of the day finally came, Jenna came up to me. She looked like an angel without her wings.
"Are you ready to go?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said, that smile still there.
We started to walk to the movies. The whole way there, we talked and talked, and my nervousness seemed to melt away. Instead of feeling nervous, I found myself feeling happy. The way we walked and talked together, how much we had in common, it made me happy to be with her. We liked the same movies, the same music, the same games, the same everything. During the movie, when something funny happened, she would whisper something funny in my ear and we would laugh together. A lot of people in the theatre got mad at us for laughing the whole time and disturbing them, but I didn't really care. If Jenna was feeling what I was feeling then, I knew she didn't care either.
After the movie, we went for a walk. We wanted to talk more. She was so perfect. I loved everything about her. She was sweet, caring, really funny, and had a spirit that I knew immediately was strong enough to make a mountain crumble. We just had so much in common, and we made each other laugh every second we were together. Every time she smiled at me, my heart melted-- every time she laughed, my soul cried with joy.

After that day, we spent every waking moment together. Every second of the day, if it were humanly possible to be together at that moment, we would be. Used to, I was a body with a soul, but now I was a soul with a body. I felt so free-- so happy. My mother and sister noticed it. They said I smiled more, I seemed so much happier. They said that even my face was brighter and happier. It was because of Jenna. I loved her. I fell in love with her, and I knew that. I had never been so sure of anything in my life. All my life I wondered what love was like, and now I realized that I never really was complete until I found it. I never knew just how dead I was until I met her. We had dated for about a month before I had made up my mind-- I wanted to tell her I loved her. I did love her, but I hadn't told her that. I planned to on our one-month anniversary.
In honor of our one-month anniversary, I was taking her to a fancy resteraunt. When I went to pick her up, she stepped out, wearing a light pink dress down to the ground, with straps that went across her shoulders. She had on high heels that matched the dress, and earrings and a necklace. She was glowing-- even though the sun was already out, when she came out, I think the sun got brighter.
I stepped out of the car in my tux, and wanting to be a gentleman, I took her hand in mine and kissed it. She laughed, thinking it was sweet. I took her hand and led her to the passanger's seat of the car, and opened the door for her. I helped her in and closed her door. I went to the driver's side and got in. We fastened our seatbelts.
"Shawn, this is really sweet of you to do," she said.
"Well, you deserve it." I smiled my new-found smile at her.
She kissed me. We had kissed before. I wanted so much to tell her that I loved her, but I wanted to wait until we got to dinner.
We walked in, and the lady who opened the door smiled at us, a bigger smile than what she would smile to other customers. Maybe because the smile she gave us was real, not part of the job. I think she could just feel the love in the air when we walked in. I had never actually looked at how we might look together from another person's point of view. I took this moment to do so. We looked great together. She was so beautiful. And I had never really taken a look at myself that way before, but now that I did, I was good-looking. I guess I had never really looked at myself that way since I never had a girlfriend. I had short brown hair that stood up on my head, blue eyes, and a goatee. I was slender.
When we sat down, we took a minute to order. And, of course laughing about it the whole time, joked about the prices of everything she wanted to order. When we finally did order, we talked and laughed as we usually did. Some people looked at us, not to be rude or show they were annoyed, but I think they felt the same thing the lady who opened the door felt. I chose this moment to tell her.
"Jenna?" I said.
"Shawn?" she said, being cute about it.
"I have something I want to tell you."
"...What?" she asked cautiously.
"Nothing bad."
"Okay."
I took her hand in mine across the table and smiled. "I love you."
She smiled and her eyes teared up. "Oh, Shawn... I love you too."
We kissed across the table.
"Come on, let's go!" she said.
"Huh?"
"Just come on!" she took my hand and began to lead me out of the resteraunt.
"Uhh, Jenna?"
"Yeah?"
"We didn't pay the bill."
"Oh, right." She laughed. We went back to pay the bill, and she took me out of the resteraunt.
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"You'll see."
I smiled and laughed.

She held my hand the whole time as she ran ahead, me following. I didn't know where she was taking me. We laughed the whole way. Eventually she took me to a part of the town I wasn't farmiliar with. We came across a meadow. It was a beautiful meadow-- with tall grass, a pond in the middle, and flowers of every color. This is where she stopped.
"Where are we?" I asked.
"My own little private meadow."
I looked around. "It's beautiful here."
"I know, isn't it?" She smiled and spun around in circles-- like a happy little girl-- and fell onto the ground laughing.
I did the same. I laughed and spun and fell next to her. We stared at the sky. I looked at her. "Is this what Heaven is like?"
"I don't know." she smiled, "but I think it might be."
"Surrounded by beauty and laughing with an angel. That's what I think it is."
She smiled. "Me too." she paused for a second, "I think I might be in Heaven now too."
I smiled.
She kissed me, still on the ground.
We stayed in the meadow for a while. We got up after a while and just walked around the meadow and talked. But what I thought was weird... was that when we stood up, there wasn't any dirt or grass on our clothes. They were spotless.
We walked around the lake. She was leaning in, admiring its beauty. I did so too, the lake's and her beauty. I looked at her for a while, but then looked at the lake. It was glowing, and it looked like the sun, melted into a puddle.
She leaned in a little too far and started to fall in. "Watch out!" I yelled as I reached for her to pull her back, but I was too late. She fell in. "Jenna!" I screamed. I jumped into the lake. I grabbed her over my shoulder and swam back to the surface. I put her down on the ground and she coughed. "Are you okay?" I asked. "Yeah, I'm fine... you saved me!" she said.
"Of course I did."
She stood up, and I followed her. "Thank you."
"No problem." I smiled.
She kissed me. As we kissed, it began to rain.
We stopped kissing when the rain started to fall, and held out one of our hands on either side of ourselves to feel the rain. We laughed. We laughed for a long time, and kissed again. We stayed like that for a long time-- what seemed like hours. I knew it couldn't have been that long, but time seemed to stop for a while, as I kissed her in the rain.


Jenna and I dated for two years. When we were nineteen, I proposed to her. I had taken her to that meadow-- Heaven on Earth. When I proposed, she screamed and cried and laughed.
"Yes!! Yes, of course I'll marry you, Shawn!" she had said.
I hugged her and put the ring on her finger. The ring was silver, with a diamond in the middle, and on either side, three diamonds, each one smaller than the last. The smallest diamonds were the two outermost diamonds, and the largest was in the middle. "I love you, Jenna."
"I love you too, Shawn."
We kissed. Like we had two years before, and many times in between. It began to rain. We stopped to laugh, and I said, "All my life, I never thought I'd fall in love with an angel." She smiled; I smiled. We kissed again. I had never been so happy, as I kissed her in the rain.

Her wedding dress was a beautiful white strapless dress, that had silk on the bottom layer and ruffles on the bottom of the outer layer. It had see-through sleeves that began under her shoulder, where her strapless dress began, and went down to her wrist and hung freely. She looked more beautiful on that day than she ever had before. I never thought that could be possible.
For our honeymoon we went to Paris. Jenna had always talked about one day seeing Paris. And Jenna, being her playful self, actually tried the snails. And before I knew it, she had put one in my mouth. It wasn't half bad.
One year later, when we were twenty years old, we had our first child. My little boy, Devin. When Devin was two years old, we had planned to have another one. But when Jenna and I went to the doctor, she was pregnant, we knew that. But not with a baby. With twins. Our little twin girls were Shay and Kiari. When they turned three, Jenna was pregnant again. Another boy, Joey.
I loved my wife, and all four of my children. They grew up so fast, and all of them got married. We had eight grandchildren. Devin had one baby with a woman named Diane, and his baby was a little boy named Ethan. Shay had two children with a man named Daniel. One boy, Matthew, the older one, and one girl, Hannah. Kiari married a man named Andrew and also had two children with him. They were twin boys, Christopher, after Jenna's father, and Shawn, after me. And finally, Joey married a woman named Karen and had three children with her. They were all girls. Emma, Madison, and Olivia.
Jenna and I went back to the meadow many times. Each time we went there, we kissed, and it rained. It would never rain before we went there or before we started to kiss.
I loved, lived, and died for and with Jenna. She and I never fought. Our entire lives-- from when we were seventeen until the day we died together-- we didn't have one fight. Not one. A lot of people found that hard to believe. We didn't.
No matter what our children did, what our grandchildren did, what anyone in the world did to make us mad or angry or upset, it was never with each other. And no matter what in our lives went wrong, we could always go to the meadow and all our troubles would melt away. Nothing in the world could be wrong, as I kissed her in the rain.