We Fell in Love Between Rainstorms

The first time I saw him, it was raining so hard the city looked like it was dissolving.

I ducked into a tiny bookstore on the corner — one of those old, narrow ones that smelled like paper and dust and comfort. I was shaking rain from my coat when I heard a voice behind me say, “Perfect day to get lost in a book, huh?”

I turned and saw him — damp hair, a mischievous grin, and an umbrella that looked like it had lost the battle against the storm.

“Or maybe perfect to hide from one,” I said.

He laughed, and just like that, we began.

His name was Eli. He worked at the café across the street, he told me, and came to the bookstore whenever the weather got too loud. He liked quiet places — said they helped him think. I liked that about him immediately.

We talked for over an hour that day, standing between the poetry shelves, listening to the rain hammer against the windows. He told me about his dream of opening a coffee shop by the ocean someday, where people could write or paint while the waves whispered outside. I told him I wrote stories but rarely finished them.

“Maybe you just haven’t found the right ending yet,” he said.

Something in the way he said it made me believe him.

The rain finally stopped, and before leaving, he scribbled his number on a bookmark. “For the next storm,” he said.

And that’s how it started — our strange, perfect tradition.

Whenever it rained, we met at that same bookstore. Sometimes we talked for hours; sometimes we just sat side by side, reading quietly while thunder rolled in the distance. We shared stories, fears, and little pieces of our lives that didn’t fit anywhere else.

I never planned to fall for him. But somehow, in the pauses between rainstorms, I did.

One day, the rain didn’t come. The city stayed dry for weeks, sun blazing through endless blue skies. I didn’t see Eli during that time, though I found myself checking the forecast obsessively, hoping for even the smallest cloud.

When the rain finally returned, I rushed to the bookstore — heart racing, breath uneven. And there he was, waiting near the window, holding two cups of coffee.

“I thought maybe you’d forgotten me,” he said softly.

“Not possible,” I whispered.

That day, when thunder shook the sky, he leaned in and kissed me. It was gentle, unsure, like he didn’t want to break the moment — or maybe he already knew how fragile it was.

After that, the storms became ours.

But seasons change, and so did everything else.

The bookstore closed for renovations that winter, and Eli got an offer to manage a café in another city — the kind of opportunity he couldn’t refuse. He told me about it over coffee, rain streaking down the window behind him.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I want to go. But I don’t want to leave this — us.”

I smiled, even as my throat tightened. “You have to go, Eli. You’ve been waiting for this.”

He took my hand. “You’ll find me again, won’t you? Next time it rains?”

I nodded. But deep down, I knew — some rain doesn’t come back.

He left the following week. I stood outside the station as his train pulled away, the drizzle soft against my face. I told myself I’d see him again, but the storms that came after felt lonelier somehow.

Still, I went to the bookstore every time it rained. Sometimes I brought two cups of coffee. Sometimes I just sat and listened, pretending he was there beside me, making quiet jokes about the weather.

It’s been years now. The bookstore reopened, brighter, cleaner, but missing that old smell of time and memory. I still go there when it rains, out of habit, or maybe hope.

Once, I thought I saw him across the street — the same messy hair, the same grin — but before I could call out, he was gone, lost in the crowd.

Maybe it was just my heart remembering what it used to feel like.

I still keep the bookmark with his number on it, faded and creased. I never called again. I think part of me wanted to keep him as he was — a story without an ending, a love that belonged to rain.

Because some people aren’t meant to stay forever. They arrive, change you, and leave you softer than they found you.

And sometimes, when the first drops hit the window, I smile.

Because somewhere, under some other sky, I hope he’s doing the same.