Late into the night, when nothing but the snowflakes hitchhiking on the skittish wind outside dared to brush themselves against the tough windows of her home, Rae found herself staring up at a ceiling again. This time, it was the ceiling of her bedroom, a ceiling so spotless, so smooth and leveled, that it almost felt as if she were at someone else's home rather than her own. No ridges, no bumps, no clumpy flakes of paint threatening to fall off the ceiling, nothing save for the standard lightbulb at the center of the room, and for the moment, the faint glow that creeped itself onto the ceiling from the edges of Rae's curtains, a glow that came from the dying street light on the other side of the street.

There was nothing in particular in Rae's mind that kept her awake, she just couldn't sleep. She'd been lying on her bed since she tucked Diamond in sometime after eight o'clock, closing her eyes for minutes at a time, and no sweet dreams took hold of her. No nightmares either. And so she stared at the ceiling, with the occasional glimpse at her smartphone, just in case any new text messages showed up on her screen or something.

She didn't understand why it was happening── Rae was dead tired. She basically fell asleep on the floor as soon as she walked into the apartment! And it's not like she had a history of sleeping problems, either. Sure, her sister did; that loud, condescending chatterbox always complained about her insomnia whenever there wasn't anyone to gossip about, but it's not like insomnia could be in her blood. Insomnia wasn't hereditary after all... right?

Rae licked her lips and ran a hand past her satin nightcap, felt the clump of coarse hair beneath the cap's protection graze the tips of her fingers as she passed it. She then did what she could to fluff her flattened pillow and let her head fall on it. She shut her eyes and breathed in and out, slowly. She tried her best to relax.

She was determined, she didn't want to give up on sleeping. She'd even go so far as to bargain with her stubborn body for a meager nap. She had a long shift to look forward to in a matter of hours; she asked for overtime last week and she was notified today of its approval by management.

She needed to be on the clock by seven in the morning. For that, she would need to wake Diamond up earlier than usual, get her ready on time to drop her off at her sister's before school started. Her sister would be the one to drop Diamond off to school for the day, and as usual, she would take care of Diamond after school until Rae was done with work. Rae's sister was a great support, regardless of her attitude with Rae, and Rae's own thoughts of her. Especially in days like these, where Rae had lots to do.

Working extra hours was soul-crushing for Rae. They always left her feeling sore and she couldn't see Diamond for a whole twelve hours, but they always gave her the best of pay days. With them, there's more money to save up when all of her monthly bills are paid. So Rae needed to go to sleep, she just had to. There was time at stake, money at stake. And she wouldn't be able to survive the day if she didn't sleep for at least two hours.

Rae moved her head to the other side of her pillow and felt for the phone she'd hidden under it a while back. She was only going to make sure that it was there, nothing more.

As soon as she touched it, it rang. It rang as if it were aware of her presence. With only a glance at the caller ID, Rae felt her heart trip over itself.

Adrenaline took over. She tapped the big red button on the screen to end the call before she had a chance to process it, then slid the phone under the pillow.

Seconds later, Rae's back was flat against the bed again, with her eyes glued to the ceiling. She was far from calm. She heard her blood pump away, deep in her eardrums, and her hand was on her chest, feeling things that she wasn't prepared for.

It was the middle of the night. The light in her room was off. It was snowing outside. The heater wasn't raised high enough to make note of── she made sure of that before dinner. But somehow, for some reason, the room was far too bright now, a blinding furnace that burned her alive.

Today was just not Rae's day. She wasn't sure if it all stemmed from anger, or...

"Desirae... what, what are we?"

No.

Rae knew exactly what it was, and because she knew, she snatched the phone from the pillow and called back.

As soon as the opportunity to talk presented itself, her mind went blank, and before she could keep up with herself, someone from the other end of the call spoke first.

Their first word was Rae's name. They asked for her. If she was there.

Her voice, her voice, oh my god, her voice, it's her oh my god it's really her──

Rae set her thoughts straight, fixed her throat, and forced some words out of her system. "Why did you call me?" she squeaked.

"You... you received it." To the surprised Rae, the woman's response felt like a question rather than a statement. "Huh," the woman chuckled. "No more straight to voicemail."

"Why did you call me?" Rae managed to ask again. She was barely able to hear her thoughts, let alone all that came out of her mouth, over the woman's loud presence. "It's... late."

"I called as soon as I saw your texts. I, I got too excited." From the other end of the call, Rae heard some shuffling. "Didn't think of the time. Sorry." A brief silence followed, one that allowed chills to run up Rae's spine in the midst of a hungry, hungry fire. "Were you sleeping?"

"Desirae... what, what are we? I can't handle all of the riddles and puzzles anymore. I want us to be more than whatever this is. I want us to be together. I want us to be official... "

"Desirae?"

"I want you to be my girlfriend, Desirae."

Rae stumbled out of her bed and immediately regretted it. Her body didn't want to listen to her. She ordered it to keep itself leveled; grounded in the worn carpet of her room, but all her body sought to do was punch its way out of the apartment and fly high into the sky, snuggle a big white cloud, be one with the birds and the bees that were free to roam in the air. Rae felt shivers overwhelm her, the excitement of an adventure out of her bounds, an everlasting adventure where her fear of heights had no place to call home. As childish as it seemed, her thirty-plus-year-old heart with a family history of heart attacks was on the edge of its seat with just the thought of it all.

It wanted to burst right out of Rae's rib cage, into the outside world where it could do anything as it pleased.

Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump...

"Hello? Desirae, are you there?"

Every word that came out of Rae's lips dropped down to the carpet, bounced their way out of the window and into the cool darkness of the white night, until Rae was miraculously able to drag her body down to the kitchen, where it faced the lettuce and tomatoes within the subtle hums and inner plastic walls of the fridge until the very end of the call. The cold from it kept her on a loose leash, but a leash nevertheless.

"Yes I'm here," Rae breathed. "And no. No sleeping here." Rae suddenly felt a giggle coming up her throat, and she was helpless to it. It left her in the lightest of manners. As if she were the woman herself, one with the sky, weightless, floating up, and up, and up... forevermore. "I wish." But Rae was Rae. She wasn't the fine owner of the voice on the phone. She would have to work her way up. She would need wings to get herself there. "Why are you up so late, what are you up to?"

"Oh, me? Nothing much. I'm in my car, warming up the engine a lil' bit before I head home," the woman said. "What about you?"

Her car? Why? Where was she? Was she with anyone... ?

Rae swallowed, hard. "Head home?"

"Mmm. Just left the Factory, had to help a new bartender close down their station," the woman replied. "The other one clocked out with Ernie before I had the chance to ask them to help. They knew what they were doing. Sly as hell, that one." A silence as thick as the pale green veins of the lettuce that peered at Rae followed, for a fraction of a second. "How've you been?"

The cool air from the fridge stroked the brittle fabric of Rae's leash. "I'm alright."

"And Double D?"

"She's alright too."

"Did she like the pastelón?"

Right then and there, a knot formed in Rae's stomach.

She scooched herself over to the side, closer to the glass pitcher she'd filled with the mango and carrot smoothie she'd made earlier in the night, after dinner. Rae always made sure to talk Diamond down on drinking straight out of the pitcher, but boy did she want to break her own rule and take a swig of it right now. Diamond wasn't awake, she would never know. And who knows, maybe it would keep the knot too busy caring about not drowning in all that thick orange goo to hold Rae hostage.

Rae brought the pitcher's opening to her lips and gulped down as much of the smoothie as she physically could, felt its chunky contents take up the space in every nook and cranny of her body. And yet, after she put it down, she couldn't feel the knot any less. She played herself. The smoothie only left her with a bitter aftertaste. No lemons were squeezed in the making of it. The mangoes she used were ripe. Carrots aren't bitter.

"You knew she would," Rae eventually replied. "So why would you ask that?"

With the exact opposite of Rae's tone, the woman said, "I don't know, Desirae, but contrary to your belief, there's nothing wrong with me."

Rae sucked her teeth at that, and closed her eyes. The angry text message she had sent to the woman picked at Rae's guilt. Her mouth went dry. "Why did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Don't play dumb with me, you know what I'm talking about."

"No, I don't."

Rae rubbed her temples, matched it with the frenzied pangs caged within. "The pastelón. The chocolate. The... the... just... why?"

"The flowers? The note?" the woman pitched in. "Why, you ask?"

'I miss you.'

"Give me the keys back," Rae quickly said, unsure if she would've been able to say it a second later.

"Desirae, I── "

Oh god don't say it, don't you dare──

"No."

"I miss you."

The coolness of her voice was worn out by then. In fact, if Rae heard the woman right, there was an edge to it now, an edge sharp enough to cut right through the voice Rae couldn't deny to be pleasant to her ears, had it squeak.

She didn't see that in the contents of the glossy pink card. She didn't taste it in the pastelón, nor the chocolates Diamond left behind in the box. She didn't smell it in the roses and baby's breaths. She didn't feel it on the rose petals on her wooden table.

It tore Rae apart.

She held her chest with both of her hands, as if it would somehow keep all of her pieces together. She intertwined her hands, squeezed them together until the moment she found out she was only making it worse, when there was nothing but an acidic mush burning a whole through her body, a body that had fallen victim to violent shivers, as if it'd just been caressed by the chilly wind outside.

It didn't take long for her to fall to her knees. Warm, perspiring flesh met with stained, ice-cold ceramic tiles. Rae's knees left her behind, in the fridge, where she stared at nothing and everything; the plastic, the lettuce, the tomatoes, the air, the pitcher. Herself. The fridge's door, in pity, found its way to her back, patted it. And only then did they come. Only then did those hot, briny things gush out of her eyes and down her cheeks, those hot things that brought about a whirlwind of awful pains somewhere in her lungs, her throat, her heart.

"Amaya... " Rae heard herself mumble. "Amaya... Amaya... "

"I know, I know," Amaya croaked. "You want the keys." Rae sobbed in silence, save for the name that refused to stop oozing out of her quivering lips. "Come pick them up. This weekend. At my house." Amaya, Amaya, Amaya── "Just come, please. I want to see you. Let's talk, alright? Talk things through."

Rae's heart heard enough, it couldn't take it any more.

Rae tapped the big red button on her screen and ended the call. She then pressed the phone against her chest, let it sink and corrode in the acidic mush.

It took her ages, but she managed to drag herself back to her bedroom, and onto her bed, where she cried and cried until the moment she was swept off her feet by the promise of peace and quiet. Calm.

And so, Rae finally dreamed.

Rae dreamed of a baby blue sky filled with soft pink clouds, soft pink clouds that resembled sweet cotton candy, sweet cotton candy from Ratt E. Cheese's Arcade, where Amaya's luscious lips touched Rae's, and Rae's touched Amaya's. Where plum matte lipstick intermingled with coconut-flavored chapstick, and beyond; where tongues danced to a beat their owners composed with the essence of their souls, and played with the strings of their hearts.

Rae dreamed of a baby blue sky, a baby blue sky that she was free to roam about with her wings, wings that supported all of her weight, wings that made her feel weightless, unafraid of heights...

After the rain, she dreamed of being one with the sky.