Bruno led her to an outdoor restaurant perched upon the beachside. A gentle breeze shuffled the palm trees, and tiny bulbs, although unlit at the moment, festooned the branches. Claire could imagine the exotic ambiance, how it'd look at night when they're beaming in light, and a smile escaped her.

"Didn't expect to see you so soon," said a young waitress with a tray of drinks, her bleached hair styled into bouncing pigtails.

Given her blushing smile, it took even the densest head to understand she was talking to Bruno, whose attention wasn't on her until later when Claire wrenched her eyebrows pointedly at Miss Pigtails.

"Oh, hi there," Bruno greeted the waitress, giving her his casual yet winsome smile.

"Hello!" Miss Pigtails smiled back with a hint of amusement regarding Bruno's companion.

Typical playboy. Claire brushed it off as the waitress walked by, not giving her so much as a glance despite the smile lingering on her face. She sat across from Bruno, looking like a couple on a lunch date.

Their table was near some railings set between the seashores and the restaurant. The view was perfect: turquoise blue water, golden sand, and seagulls floating in the azure sky with a song familiar to the townsfolks.

Bruno snapped a finger, and another waiter made his way toward their table quicker than usual. It was a guy this time, and just like Miss Pigtails, this young man in black jeans and a polo shirt wore his smile like a crown.

"You seem very popular here," Claire made a casual remark upon the gesture.

Bruno smiled and said, "That I am."

"Oh, and what do you do around here? Photography?" Claire went on curiously, recalling the vintage camera he'd left in the car.

Bruno propped himself up and pulled his chair closer to the table as he replied, "It's my restaurant, so that makes it my... workplace?"

Claire hadn't seen this coming. Well, he isn't a weirdo, after all, and downright not a ghost since everyone can see him. A foolish smile crept on her face.

"Something funny?" Bruno teased, plopping back on his seat with a grin.

"Um, nothing. Congratulations. This place is terrific," Claire confessed.

"Thanks." His smile was modest.

Chicken casserole was Claire's choice from the menu, feeling a bit in the mood for a good meal that didn't include mere grass and leaves. The smiling waiter faced Bruno and asked if he'd made his choice.

"I'll have the same," he said and then faced Claire. "Care for a drink? The cocktails here are to die for; not that I'm bragging."

Claire rolled her eyes at him.

She tilted her head slightly toward the waiter. "I know he's your boss, but I'm the customer here, and a customer is the King... No, the Queen, in my case! So, the truth, please. If he's lying, just blink once and I'll understand. Cross my heart, I won't hold a grudge against him," she joked, the reserved girl in her shut deep within.

Collective laughter surrounded her, and her lips couldn't hold a bright smile.

"They are great," the waiter said confidently.

Claire's head tilted back to the opposite side as she considered his words. Honestly, she was having a good time already, as though it was only natural to feel so. Her sadness from minutes ago was slowly fading like dust in the wind.

Adventure or not, she was here to have fun.

"Okay," she acquiesced. "Why not? Worst case scenario, I'll never come back here if you both scam me."

The boys exchanged glances and shrugged it off with a smile.

"So..." Bruno resumes his full, undistracted attention back to Claire the second the waiter left. "What brings a city girl like you to our little town? Because I know you're not from here." His brown eyes blazed with wonder aside his playfulness.

"Well, I just came to relax over the weekend," Claire answered with a deep sigh, sitting upright with her fingers interlocked on top of the table. "And to visit my dad." Her voice fell low without ecstasy, and it seemed like Bruno understood her better, given the gentle, rueful smile that tugged his lips.

"I'm sorry. I was also visiting my mother," he said as he reclined back in his seat.

"Oh?" Claire uttered, and this turned out to be an ordinary topic the moment Bruno talked about his dead mother. "I'm sorry for your loss," she breathed.

"It's okay. We're still surviving, aren't we?" Bruno enthused, his colorful mood restored.

"Yeah. Surviving." Claire's mind wandered back to the city where her stepmother was always on her neck, turning her life a living hell as though it hadn't been enough already.

It was time to move out, she'd constantly say this, but the thought of her childhood mementos depicted in the walls of her house and everything inside it would always hold her back. But at some point, perhaps soon, she knew she'd have to take that big step for her own happiness.

"Are we on memory lane?" Bruno teased her.

"Oh, sorry." Claire dismissed him with a chagrined smile.

"And where exactly do you live?" he asked after a short pause of laughter.

"Lisbay."

"City girl indeed."

"No, I'm not. If it weren't for other priorities, I'd have moved here without thinking twice," Claire said absently, thinking of her career that was just about to begin.

There was a lot to do in the city.

"Well, I do like this place better than the city," Bruno said, running a hand through his glossy curls like a magazine model on the beach.

Something about him put Claire at ease, and she was sure as hell that it wasn't anything erotic, as Gena Montero would've instantly suggested while encouraging her to jump on his lap and tear off his baby blue button-up shirt.

"You're drifting again," Bruno pointed.

Embarrassment swept over Claire's eyes, especially when her tummy started to rumble. She eyed Bruno blankly upon his plain laughter that lacked modesty.

She scowled at him, her lips pursed cutely. "I think food would be better than your teeth," she said, and now he laughed even louder.

So did she.

"Big appetite, huh?" Bruno teased.

"What can I say?" Claire flushed. "Some girls have their priorities straight, and that means food."

And indeed, she loved eating.

Between lunch and talking, time seemed to be running fast. Bruno was never at a loss for words; anything he said wasn't something one wouldn't want to hear.

He was a natural.

Claire, however, had nothing much to tell. Her life had been a dull, empty page with nothing but her step-family and the failed romance during high school as the only thing worth the headlines.

A topic for another time, she told him.

As for Bruno, he was a definition of spontaneity. The young man had been to major cities of Europe, schooling between Rome, Madrid, and Barcelona, and worked in London, Athens, and Paris. He was a free spirit, enjoying life and the simple things it had to offer.

Photography was Bruno's to-live-for passion.

"The world has so much beauty in it, Claire. All you need is look, and that's how photography captures it all," he said.

Claire couldn't stop staring at him longer than she wanted at times. He was handsome, charming, and passionate, too, with something that could make one feel safe around him, as though they could trust him blindly.

He was in his mid-twenties or so, Claire reckoned. Tall, lean but fit enough, not the heavy weightlifting kind of fit but a healthy one, and his glossy black hair framed his cheeks with curly waves that flashed him an adorable hippy look, and there was not a single tattoo on his exposed skin as she somehow imagined him to have.

But that was all. It was no time to crush on some guy she'd just met in the cemetery. Okay, maybe she had all the time in the world, but she wanted him to be the sweet stranger she'd met and somehow didn't want to ruin it.

Her phone buzzed. It was Gena.

"Hey, where are you?" Gena urged in a worried tone of voice.

"Um, at a restaurant... with a friend," Claire replied, smiling at Bruno ever-gently while nursing the glass of her iced cocktail that tasted like tropical fruits and Vodka. "Do you need something or just miss me already?" She wedged the straw between her lips, imagining Gena's dramatic agitation.

"Which friend that I don't know? Spill, Claire Levy! Have you met some cute guy over there?" Gena sassed.

Claire rolled her eyes. "Typical Montero. Jesus, you're impossible! We'll talk later. Be there soon!"

"You better hurry up, huh? I'm bored to death here. And... It looks like it's about to rain. Come back soon, Claire. Or should we swing by to fetch you?" Gena asked worriedly.

"No, I'll be leaving right away. I'll be fine," Claire said, her attention caught by the weather.

Cotton white clouds had begun to look like a billow of smoke lurking in the sky as she ended the call.

"Something wrong?" Bruno quizzed.

"I have to go," Claire said awkwardly, stashing her mobile into her shoulder bag. "Thanks for lunch and... everything. I had fun."

Reluctantly, surprised at her sudden shift of mood, Bruno said, "Mention not. I guess I'll see you around if you're staying longer?"

"You probably will." She was collecting her bag hastily, but her smiling eyes remained on him.

She had to be home quickly.

___

The dark clouds had engulfed the sky when Claire reached the empty bus stop. She hadn't found a taxi yet. Maybe she should've accepted Bruno's offer to drive her home. Regrets pooled into her like streamlets of cold water, almost painful.

"Just don't rain," she murmured, rubbing her palms together to do away with the slight chill from the capricious breeze purring the flakes of dust and leaves in the air.

Claire didn't hate rain; she just couldn't stand it. Not when she wasn't inside her bedroom under the warmth of her blanket.

The rain made her feel sad, battered, and alone, especially when it wasn't just a patchy drizzle but an intense downpour with thunder and lightning. Some bad memories would crash her, turning her into someone she didn't want to be.

A crazy, panicked woman.

Five minutes passed, and there was no sign of any taxi or bus on the road, just two cargo trucks that ran by at the speed of the light.

No calls went through when Claire tried to reach Gena and Grandpa Robles. The signal was lost, and slowly it began to drizzle.

"Crap!" she cussed, staring up heavenward where the crack of lightning tore the sky soundlessly.

Please don't rain.

But her prayer couldn't bend heaven's will.

Rain droplets hit the dusty ground. Claire elevated her feet quickly onto the passenger bench, letting no water touch her sneakers. The sweet, sandy scent wafted her nose, but all she could think of was a storm, a heavy downpour with thunder and noise, so much noise she'd hear in her memory fragments that were still unclear.

Heat seared through her, but outside she was trembling from cold. Why did everything change so abruptly? Panic surged through her in riptides, and each sight she took of the running droplets rendered her heartbeat erratic, quickening her pulse.

It's Ombrophobia, an old psychiatrist once told her dad when she had a panic attack. Scared of rain? Aren't you such a weakling, Claire?  Voices in her head became louder as heavy rain continued to pour, cracking the bus stop roof with ruthless sounds that made her fists curl up tightly into balls.

A weirdo. That's what she felt on her tenth birthday when it rained at school while Miss Lopez sang her Happy Birthday in the classroom. The sky was as dark then as it was now. She couldn't breathe; she froze. She saw nothing but the stabbed pregnant woman on the grass near the pair of metallic swings, her eyes wide open, and each raindrop falling on Claire's little form felt like a blade piercing through her.

Even right now, just as that day, Claire didn't move. Her eyes closed, her brain shut, and her legs were pulled together toward her chest with arms wrapped around them.

"Please," she whispered, chanting between her knees. "Just stop raining!" Warm tears burned her eyes as the pool of blood flashed through her mind.

Her mom's eyes, pale and lifeless green eyes, made her fall short of breath.

It's always the eyes. She would see those emerald eyes and her heart would clench, knotting her chest so tightly she couldn't breathe.

Amid her struggle, she suddenly glimpsed a sound, a sporadic engine revving. Another cargo truck. She had to move; she had to do something to fight back her weakness. So she dropped her feet recklessly, sucked in a breath, and stood up.

The truck was near, headlights piercing through the dusky evening hue, and she had to reach the center of the road. She did it. She waved, but it passed by speedily. She was late. Fuck, she was too slow. She burst into tears, standing there helplessly.

She was now alone, drenching, her white cotton shirt, dark blue jeans, and white sneakers all wet the more she stood there panicked, surrounded by sounds and waterfall and everything she didn't like.

The only thing she needed was for someone to make this rain stop. Just anyone to come and save her from the chasm of pain and panic.

_______

A/N: So, my girl is in trouble. In case you're wondering, fear of rain is real and there are ombrophobic people out there. Good news, they say it's therapeutic so there's a chance to recover.