Rain poured down the day she returned. Puddles so deep that your boots would overflow. I stumbled around them, feeling the slosh of mud beneath the soles of my feet every step I took. “Put your right foot down here, slosh, now the left foot to balance, slosh, make sure to keep balance”, the voice in my head kept repeating on loop. My mind fastened on the small pools surrounding my grey boots. Each step I took brought up a new task, like how to balance when I step too far to the left, or when to make minimal splash, or really anything that wasn’t about her. The old Callie would’ve loved these moments, we used to wander right here in her yard and think of stupid childish games we could play, and the other high schoolers would sometimes walk by and stare at us funny. Old Callie wouldn’t care though, she would throw her head back and laugh at how crazy we were and all the crazy things she used to love about us. The puddles started to shrink as I approached her front door and I had to face what I really came here to do.

What is she going to think when she sees me? I know she will be different but I don’t want different. A few weeks before they forced her to go away, I started to notice the changes. Her face would constantly be the color of faded chalk and she became frail like a broken-winged bird. I didn’t noticed that she never ate, after I found out I thought that I was clueless not to realize, but I guess the deprivation got to her before it could reach me. I came right here to this doorstep the day she left, nobody ever told me what I was supposed to do. Her Mom ignored me but her Dad said that Callie ‘doesn’t need any boys in her life right now’. Seriously, these were the some of the s***ty excuses I began collect one by one. There was the ‘don’t talk to your girlfriend, she’s in a bad place, don’t bother her’ from my Dad or the ‘call Callie, you’re supposed to be there for her’. Friends at school would ask me too, to a point where I felt that I was being dragged at two ends of a rope, ‘go to her’ one side chanted, ‘leave it be’ yelled the other. Nobody ever asked me what I think. Nobody ever thought to ask my opinion or even just feel somewhat of what I’m going through. What I would give to tell them that I tried talking to her, 38 times to be exact. Text after call after text in a long row. It started as “Hey Callie, I know you’re having a hard time and I’d really wish we could talk” to eventually “GET OVER YOURSELF AND TALK TO ME!!!”. Maybe I was too harsh, but at least I cared about her when no one chose to care about me.

I sharply inhaled as my finger pressed the button and I heard the ding-dong echo inside the house. I heard a few feet shuffling, and then nothing. I waited for about a minute and then rung it again. A short girl opened the door and for a second I panicked thinking I was at the wrong house. Slowly her features stuck out to me and I had to clench my jaw from dropping because it was her. She was still frail but her face was stretched out and her eyes turned dull and sunken. “What do you want?” She asked quietly and looked quickly at the ground. What I want Callie is for you to just go back to normal already. For everything to go away, just get over the fact that--- “I just wanted to talk to you”, was the only phrase I could really tell her even though I just want to tear her apart for letting me go with no reason. She stared at me motionless. Adjusting my hands into the pockets into my jeans, I glanced at the ground and then back at this stranger in front of me and sighed. She finally parted her lips but I didn’t need to hear what came out of them. Water-filled eyes, then the door slamming, and nothing back to normal. My feet dangled slowly off the last step of her front door, my back to the house. The drops of rain caused my soaking wet hair to fall over my eyes. There again were the puddles. They were always growing, always shrinking and changing when raindrops cascade from the sky. Some overflowing, others seeping into the ground. As they change, the puddles never seemed to stay the same. Old Callie would’ve understood, but New Callie just didn’t. Puddles don’t cover the ground forever, they’re just for a little while and everything changes once again. I glanced back at the closed door wishing all I could do was punch a hole through it. Instead, I looked back in front of me, I jumped as high I could off that step. The puddles burst into the air when I hit the ground, showering me with anger. There were no more puddles, just water sprawled across the ground. Water spewed out in all directions soaking my boots and mud sloshed everywhere. Everything was destroyed just by just one simple jump. Puddles upon puddles ruined just like Callie.