The bus you had planned to catch had come and gone six minutes early and the next one was in forty. You had decided to walk it. You had been wrong about the rain. Owen had said take the umbrella and you had said the rain was going to hold. It had not held. You were three blocks from the apartment when the sky opened, and by the fourth block your jeans were soaked through, and by the fifth you had stopped hurrying because the hurry did not matter anymore.
You slowed under the streetlight on the corner because you needed a second before you crossed. Your shirt was see-through against your chest. That would not have bothered you until you looked down and saw what was under it. Not your chest. You closed your eyes and opened them again. Same chest. The rain was making a shape at the wet fabric that had not been there before. You put your hand up to it and felt weight where the rib had been.
The jeans were gone. There was a skirt in their place. It was already sticking to the fronts of your thighs. Your thighs were bare below it. The rain pattern on the skin there was the same as the rain pattern on the tile it was standing on. Your hair was heavy on your shoulders. Long. You reached up and squeezed a handful of water out of it and looked at the strand you had squeezed. Purple. Fading to something lighter at the end.
Your shoes were shorter. Your calves had come up smaller under the fall of the pleats. You caught your face in the black window of the closed noodle shop on the corner. The face was not yours. It was smiling a little, at the rain, because it did not seem to have anything else to do. You smelled the wet asphalt. The rain had loosened whatever oil the road had been holding onto. The streetlight buzzed once and steadied.
Someone came around the corner under an umbrella. You knew the umbrella. It was Owen's. You had bought it for him last winter. He held it out as he crossed the intersection. He was going to catch up with you and get you under it. He was going to look at the person he was giving the umbrella to. He was going to hesitate. You started walking to meet him because you wanted to see the look before he could hide it.
You started walking to meet him because you wanted to see the look before he could hide it. He hesitated. You watched him hesitate.
"Sorry," he said. "You looked like — never mind."
"I looked like who?"
"My roommate. From behind."
He held the umbrella out over you both. The rain hit the top of it and ran off the edge and back onto his shoulder. He was already soaked from the walk over.
"You headed anywhere in particular?" he said.
You gave him the name of the street he lived on.
He looked at you again. "Weird. That's mine."
He did not ask you the roommate's name. He did not ask you your name either. He started walking. You matched his pace under the umbrella.
Two blocks. The umbrella did not do much against the sideways of it. Water ran off your hair between your shoulder blades. You could feel his elbow through your sleeve every third step.
At the stoop he unlocked the outer door and held it for you. He unlocked the inner door. The apartment smelled the same as it had that morning. Coffee grounds and the wet coat he had left on the hook by the door yesterday. You stood in the entry with rain pooling at your bare feet on the mat.
He looked at you standing there. He looked at the door of the bathroom. He did not say anything.
"Can I use the shower?" you said.
"Yeah."
You closed the door behind you and let the pleated skirt fall onto the tile. The top peeled off your shoulders. The water was hotter than you had expected. You stood under it with your forehead against the tile until the shivering stopped.
The door opened a minute later. You did not hear it. You felt the change in the air.
He did not say anything. He stepped in behind you and pulled the curtain closed. He was already undressed. His hand went to your hip and you laid your forehead flat against the tile.
He put his mouth on the back of your neck under the wet hair. Then his hand slid down and around the front of you and pushed your hips back into him. You felt him against the small of your back. He held there for a second like he was making a decision. He was not.
He tipped your hips forward with one palm at the low of your spine. He pushed into you standing behind you. The water hit your shoulders and ran between the two of you at the waist. You made a sound and put a hand flat against the tile on either side.
He held there. Then he started to move. Slow. The tile was slick. His feet slid once and he corrected and held on to your hip. The pace steadied. You felt every stroke down the line of you.
He got faster. His forehead pressed between your shoulder blades. He wound his hand into the wet purple at the back of your head and pulled just enough to lift your chin. The water hit your throat where it had not been hitting before.
He shifted. He hooked an arm under your knee and lifted it, and you felt him deeper by an inch and gasped. He held that for a while. Then he lowered it. He turned you around by the hip and pinned you against the tile with your back to it and hooked both of your legs around his waist and pushed back in.
You could see his face now. He was not looking at your face. He was looking at your mouth. His pace was faster. You came with your fingers in his wet hair and your heels crossed behind his back and the water still coming down over both of you.
He kept going through it. His pace broke a minute later. He pulled out and finished onto your stomach where the water washed it away almost immediately.
He stayed pressed against you for a second afterward, breathing against your temple. Then he stepped back and turned the water off with the hand that was not at your hip.
He said, "That was not what I came in here for."
"No," you said.
He handed you the towel first. He took the other one. You dried at the same pace, standing in the small bathroom without talking. The rain kept coming down against the window at the far end of the hall — you could hear it through the door — steady, then heavier, then steady again.