It rains in July

IT RAINS IN JULY

(Michelle)

It rains in July.

I had to constantly remind myself of this fact as the sweltering heat beat down my face. There are some people who hate rain and some people who loved it. I was straddling that line. When it was raining I longed for the sun and it was sunny I yearned for the rain. However, after four months of oppressive heat I was certain that rain was my favorite.

I would sit with my eye on the board and my head propped up by my elbows and fantasize about the rain. It seemed like such a long time since I had felt it on my skin. I longed for it. You see what a lot of people don’t know is that there were different types of rain. There was the drizzle… when you would be walking on your merry way and out of the blue some rebellious cloud would come and sprinkle some water on you, not really soaking you; there was the kind that seemed like bullets pounding down on everything, my friend Candice liked to call this kind of rain dry rain because somehow you never seemed to get wet in this kind of rain; there was the kind that stung your skin and soaked you in an instant, according to her this fell under wet rain, and the last kind was the kind that fell in a strait line… the kind that caused all the flooding.

I had a favorite, which was the dry rain, but at that moment I didn’t care what kind of rain fell, I just want it to fall.

My main problem was that the rain my only hope for any sort of coolness in that godforsaken class I had subjected myself to. This class had no air conditioning; instead a couple fans had been placed on each corner of the room. For a class crammed with sixty students it didn’t really help the situation. So everyday when I came to class with the intention of leaning, I ended up fussing about how warm I was or listening to other students fuss about it.

Today the convent girls were at it, these were girls who went to school ran by nuns. They were the prettiest, snobbiest, meanest and possibly, horniest set of girls in the class. I hated them. Not so much because of their character but because of the way the made otherwise, reasonable people act. Everyone wanted to impress them… the boys, the girls form the government school and even the teacher, whom, despite of him being genius in economics, was the biggest ass kisser in history.

Mr. Williams was the kind of man who loved money, and those who had it. He kissed ass the ass of the little rich kids and they messaged his ego every once in a while by relaying some important message from their parents (important people). Nothing felt better than having a misguided notion than you were in with the upper class of society.

I hated that stupid class.

I looked at the clock and read the time, somehow between my fantasizing about rain and disgust for Mr. Williams time actually flew. Before I knew it I could hear the sounds of people closing their books and getting up from the benches rather loudly. I was squeezed tightly in a little corner so I knew I would be the last to leave so I took my time packing. I listened to little hints of conversation pass by me and rolled my eyes at most of it. Teenagers are so frivolous.

I stuck my note book in my bag and zipped it up. By then the line walking out the class was reduced so I scooted over and joined it. I walked out the door and breathed a sigh of relief as I made it to halls of the building. I walked down the halls slowly, trying to avoid the crush that was at the door to get outside the building. I stopped and looked at five girls trying to squeeze their way through the door. I sighed. They were all pushing and laughing like it was some big joke.

“This is so stupid,” someone next to me said.

I nodded in agreement, keeping my eyes on girls.

“I swear, they are biggest fucking idiots….”

Caught of guard by the swear, I shot my head in the direction of the voice to see who was the speaker. It was Terry, a name I only knew because it had been called out so many times in class. Of all the rich kids asses that were kissed, none was the kissed more than his.

He looked at me and tilted his head questioningly at me. I always had a serious problem hiding emotions so I knew he saw every ounce of disgust on my face. He rolled his green eyes at me and returned his gaze to the door.

I hated when people swore, simply because there was no need for it. It was so easy to express yourself with out bringing obscenities into the picture. If I didn’t like him before, my opinion of him was lessened by this incident. Not that it mattered, it wasn’t like I would have a chance to talk to him after these classes were over.

I turned my head away from him and looked at the door, the joke had apparently worn thin and the stupid girls had decided to walk out the door one by one. Relieved that no one followed their little joke, I walked out the building and into the parking lot.

Terry walked passed her in a strut that looked slow but somehow was faster than hers. He dug in his pockets and fished out some keys. He walked a little farther and went to his car and clicked on the alarm. I wasn’t surprised… a BMW. I looked at him as he threw his bag in the passenger seat and got in the car. He flicked on something in the car and looked up, his eyes just happening to fall right on mine.

For some reason I didn’t look away, I kept looking him. His brows knitted as he looked at mine. Even from the distance I could see the emerald green clearly. “What?” he mouthed. And this time I was the one to roll my eyes. I walked off and headed out the gate to catch myself a taxi.

-o-o-o-

(Terry)

That girl is wired.

I sat in my car, looking at her gazing at me with her chocolate brown eyes that were too intense for my liking. She made me uncomfortable. I felt naked when she looked at me.

“What?” I asked under my breath.

She rolled her eyes at me and walked out of the parking lot and onto the city street. I laughed lightly to myself. She was weird indeed. Sometimes when I was bored I would watch her in class. She did everything except pay attention, it was amazing all the things she found to do instead. She would scribble little drawing on her books; she would flip to another chapter of the text they weren’t studying. She would glare at Mr. Williams and sometimes she would glare at the other students.

From where I was situated in the back of the class I could observe everything. I knew she hated the girls behind her but what she didn’t know was the girls behind her, those girls from the convent maybe thought the same thing about her as she did about them. Form the looks of it the entire class thought she was a snob and all the little things she did not to pay attention was to reaffirm her superiority. When ever Mr. Williams caught her in one of her little distraction he would ask her a difficult question and she would answer it with no problem. People hated that. She acted like it was no big deal that she did that… like the rest of us were just stupid and she was better than everyone. They hated her.

I on the other hand had the privilege of being an observer. I took no sides because I knew at then end of the day no one would take mine.