This is the translated and slightly edited version of a story I originally wrote in German back in 2009, I think.

In the rain

There she was. Standing in the night. A lonely figure in the rain, which ran off of her umbrella in drops and fell to the ground where it burst into thousand little droplets.

I had found her.

Thank God.

The gravel crunched underneath by boots as I made my way towards her in my bright yellow raincoat. Her back was turned to me and she looked ahead, yet I couldn't tell what she was looking at.

I was only five more feet away from her when I finally stopped. But she didn't move, I guess she hadn't even noticed me, hadn't heard my crunching footsteps through the pestering rain.

"Chloe," I said, loud and clear, my voice breaking through the constant dribbling of rain and reaching her mind, however that might look like right now.

Finally she noticed me and turned around, looking at me with big sad eyes, her cheeks stained black from her mascara.

"What are you doing here?" she asked almost inaudibly.

"I'm taking you back home," I said and took half a step towards her. But she backed away from me like a timid animal.

"I don't want to." She took another step away from me. "I just want to be alone."

"Why are you here anyway?" I asked instead, hoping to get her talking. "There's nothing here, just some hedges and a lot of trees, completely overgrown." I furrowed my brows and turned my head left and right.

She looked off into the distance again.

"This used to be a beautiful park," she said, even lower than before. "He designed it."
It seemed like she wanted to say more, but I heard her voice break even through all the dripping and dropping of the rain.

"Chloe," I called again in a tone that was both concerned and compassionate. "Why are you doing this to yourself?"

"What exactly am I doing to myself, Andrew?" She turned around. Her gaze was weak, empty and her voice sounded tired and hoarse from crying. I could barely look at her, it was just too painful to see her so... broken.

"You're beating yourself up. You're mourning a guy, who ignored you. All these years, he didn't even write you a letter, he never came to visit you, or even called. But you're crying for him?"

She shook her head slowly while I was speaking, as if to convince herself that what I was saying wasn't the truth.

"I loved him," she whispered. "Am I not supposed to cry when he dies?"

Tears were welling up in her brown eyes again.

The sight of her caused a piercing pain in my chest. I just wanted to embrace her and hold her, but she wouldn't let me, she would just withdraw or run away once more.

Instead I was damned to stand there and do nothing but look at her. I couldn't do this.

"Please, I can't bear to see you cry, not for him. He doesn't deserve it." I turned away, I just couldn't look at her while she was shedding her tears for him, again. Even though he was gone now.

I heard her sob quietly while the rain continued to splash all around us and the wind was soughing in the treetops above. An owl flew over our heads with a soft hoo and hid somewhere in the night.

I still didn't face Chloe. I just didn't want to see the fragile broken thing she had become. It was a shame, really.

If I could just tear down this wall between us. This wall, that she had build up, brick after brick, between us, between her and me.

Like so often before, I was at a loss for words. I needed to shake her, to wake her up from this nightmare. A nightmare, she had created herself and that she refused to leave behind.

If only she knew. If only I could tell her.

That sometimes, I couldn't sleep at night. That my mind was so full of her, I couldn't go to rest. That the mere thought of her was keeping me awake all night.

But it was no use.

She was living in her own world, to far away for me to reach her with my words, my reasoning. Whatever I said or confessed, it would never make it through to her.

She had done a good job. Her wall was too thick, too sturdy. My words could never tear it down, I couldn't even put a crack in it.

And she was laying there, curled up on the floor in her own misery. She knew nothing of the world around her, the laughter, the birds singing in the trees.

She had simply forgotten how it felt to live.

"Chloe," I said once again. It was all I could produce from my mouth. My lips where dry and chapped from the words I couldn't speak. All I could do was hurl her name towards her, with all my remaining strength.

My voice cut through the night, louder than the rain, but alas my words bounced off her invisible wall and were skidded all over the place.

I felt like a weakling that just got his ass kicked by a boxing champion with a single blow.

"Chloe, listen to me." I tried again.
This time, I risked a cautious peek in her direction and my heart constricted upon seeing her. She had wrapped her arms around herself, covering her chest, as if trying to hold the pieces of her broken heart in place.

Her hand gripped the handle of her umbrella so hard her knuckles were almost white and the tears were still running down her beautiful face.

But she still wouldn't let me comfort her, instead she was sinking deeper and deeper into that hole she had dug out, into her self-pity.

"Chloe, you can't continue on like this. You can't live like this. It's a shitty life."

She breathed once, then she sighed and looked at me.

Her large eyes were twisted in pain as they drilled into mine, like a knife into my flesh.

I flinched internally, but this time, I didn't look away. I held her gaze and continued to speak.

"You have to wake up from this nightmare. You can't isolate yourself from everyone, you can't run away or pull the curtains closed and refuse to see the sun."

My words seemed to get me nowhere, she didn't even seem to listen to me. She was looking at the overgrown hedges again, turned her head to the part where there must have been colourful flowerbeds once, with wild roses and tulips.

"It seems just like yesterday," she began in a quite voice, as if she were far away from everything, far away from me. "I was here, with him. I was just a little girl back then and he told me how proud he was of me. But of course, I wasn't listening. I was sulking because he wouldn't get me a puppy. If only I knew back then what I know now..."

She stopped herself, her voice cracking as another sob shook her body.

It was too much.

She didn't deserve to feel so bad, when he had been the one who had abandoned her and tossed her to the side.

It wasn't just her who was being tormented, she was tormenting me, too.

"Please stop, you're torturing yourself. Just bury the past. He's dead now, you don't need to wait for him to call or text you anymore. Just forget him."

I was slowly losing my self-control. I couldn't believe he still had such control over her. She was blaming herself, although she had done nothing wrong.

"It's not that easy," she replied.

A sudden gust of wind whipped her hair around and splashed some rain onto her face where it mingled with her tears.

"How can you ask me to forget him, Andrew? He was my father after all."

She glanced at me again with those broken eyes. They were driving me insane.

"I can never forget him and I won't. I loved my father and I miss him. I feel empty, because I know he's not around anymore. I would do anything just to see him once again, to hear his voice one more time. If only I had the chance to look into his eyes one last time and to see him smile back at me like he used to. I would do anything."

I couldn't believe what she was saying and I think I began to doubt her sanity. Or maybe I was slowly going insane because of her, I don't really know.

I had to get her back.

"What are you talking about? Have you forgotten what he did to you? He cheated on your mum, he abandoned you. Your mother was depressed, because of him. She send you to boarding school, you were all alone.

Did he ever call you? Did he even send you a card for your birthday?

If you ask me, you're better off without him. He caused you nothing but pain, your whole life. And now you're hurting again, just because of him!"

Honestly, maybe I shouldn't have twisted the knife in her wounds. I could feel my words hitting her now and she broke down completely.

"What am I supposed to do?" she sobbed. "I'm all alone, I have no friends, no one to talk to, no one."
The tears were streaming freely down her pretty face and my heart bled as I watched her. I was incredibly sorry for her but I couldn't move, I couldn't run to her side and pick her up from the ground like I wanted to. There was still something holding me back.

"My dad is dead! Nobody loves me anymore." Her whole body was convulsing from her cries.

"That's not true," I called out to her and then added in a quieter voice: "You know, that I love you."

She was quiet all of a sudden and turned to face me, her eyes still full of tears and looked at me accusingly.

"Why do you keep saying that?" she whispered. "Why do you keep toying with me?"

Dammit, she was just about to start crying again, this time because of me.

"I'm not toying with you," I replied in a calm voice and held her gaze with my eyes. I wanted her to know how serious I was, I had never been more honest in my life.

But she shook her head at me.

"You think I don't know your reputation? You're a heartthrob, all the girls are in love with you. But you raise their hopes and then you dump them." She moved her head from side to side, making her hair twirl around her face.

For a moment I couldn't think of what to say, I was simply and utterly at a loss for words.

She was staring at me.

"Why should I be toying with you?" I asked then, trying to stay calm, focused. But in earnest, I was slightly upset with her accusation, hurt even.

"Because I'm easy prey. I'm weak. I would believe every word you said, anything."

She stared off into nothing, entrenching herself behind her invisible wall again and leaving me behind, standing in the rain.
I felt like a kicked puppy.

"You have to believe me," I begged, fighting against her resistance, but I had no chance, there was no way for me to get inside.

It was a terrible feeling, to know, she obviously didn't want me, whereas I wanted her so very much. It was eating me alive.

I had to prove to her that I was honest with her, I had to tell her. And I had to tear down these damn walls she had built around herself and bulldoze them.

The pain in my voice must have been evident as I opened my mouth again to speak and hoped that she would listen to me for once, praying that I would reach her conscience and wake her up already.

"Why can't you see? Why can't you realize what you do to me? What use is there to tell you, that I can't even think clearly, when you're near me? That I can't sleep, can't eat, when you're feeling bad. That I didn't even get a wink of sleep these last nights, because I was worried about you?

How in the world can you still argue I were lying to you?"

There was nothing to lose for me anymore. The worst she could do was to rebuff me. Again.

But she seemed to be rendered speechless, she stood there thunderstruck, her umbrella had slipped from her hands. It was carried away by the breeze.

The rain was falling down on her and left dark wet stains on her light jacket.

I could almost see her defences melting away right in front of me, her walls coming down, brick after brick, the cement crumbling down like sand. Her façade, that she had built up so carefully, now fell together like a house of cards, leaving only the girl behind it.

I had finally reached her.

She came over to me slowly and stopped right in front of me.

I didn't say anything, I didn't really know what to say anymore.

Carefully, I reached out my arm towards her and grasped her hand. I held unto it tightly, as if her touch might get lost.

I closed my eyes and my heart was beating fast. Only God knew how badly I had wanted to just hold her hand.

She let it happen and together we made our way back home.