When rain falls and I open my umbrella, I remember the years we shared one. You always tilted it toward me, leaving my shoulder dry while yours got soaked, and I never told you to straighten it. Closing it, we moved in silent sync—you folding the ribs, me smoothing the fabric. We held hands in unseen corners and dark theaters; my cold hands warmed in your palms until I learned to grip back. I remember your low laugh, the umbrella you'd pack in my bag, the way you fixed my collar, the half-step you slowed to keep distance, and your short late-night texts I read deeply. We turned rainy seasons into routine, remembering each other's birthdays better than our own. I thought understanding you so well would keep you. But forces beyond us tore us apart without a proper goodbye. Now alone, I struggle to fold the umbrella, unable to smooth the seams your warmth once softened, just as I can't understand how such real days vanished. We did nothing wrong, yet weren't allowed to hold that umbrella to the end. The rain persists; I trace each rib, reliving our shared storms, missing you across countless rains, learning slowly to put this away.
Folding the Umbrella
When the rain began to fall, and I snapped the umbrella open, I remembered those years when the two of us shared a single umbrella.
You were always tipping it toward my side. My shoulder stayed dry while yours soaked through. I had noticed it long ago, and I had let you go on doing it, never once telling you to straighten it up. When we'd fold it away, we moved in perfect rhythm—you'd close the ribs, I'd smooth the fabric. Neither of us had to say a word, yet our hands always matched. Back then I never thought any of this was worth remembering. I took it for granted the way I took eating and walking for granted, just one more ordinary part of daily life.
We held hands. At a corner where no one could see us, in the darkness after a movie let out. My hands were always cold, and you would warm them, palm to palm, bit by bit, until I would finally turn and grip your fingers back. That was the one thing I was most sure of back then—that around the next street corner, your hand would find mine again, as if it had never let go.
I remember how you laughed, low, as if afraid someone might overhear, so it fell only on my ears. I remember that on rainy days you would slip the umbrella into my backpack ahead of time, yet often forget your own. I remember the way you smoothed my collar—so light, fingertips grazing my neck, and we both pretended not to notice. I remember the half-step you deliberately slowed when you walked beside me, so that our shoulders always kept a distance I could never quite decide was deliberate or just a habit. I remember the short message you sent late at night, just asking "Did you make it home?"—and yet I could read it over and over and find a dozen meanings in it.
In those years, we turned season after season of rain into the ordinary. We hurried through the plum rains together, kept a single lamp burning through typhoons together, and remembered each other's birthdays better than our own. You spoke little, but slowly I learned to read the words you never said—in the force with which you closed the umbrella, in the half-second pause when you handed me something, in the way your throat moved when you held back a sentence. I thought that if I could read you so thoroughly, I could keep you.
I thought the days would simply go on like this, that there was no need to hold on to them, because they would always be there.
Then came one thing after another that we could not control, piling up and wrenching us apart from each other's lives. There was no proper goodbye, not even the chance to finish the sentence we'd meant to say. The warmth of each other's hands still lingered in our palms, yet we had already walked away, each on our own.
Now that I hold an umbrella alone, I understand that a two-person rhythm simply cannot exist when one person is gone. You close the ribs, I smooth the fabric—that division of labor is now mine alone, which I have to relearn clumsily from scratch. However I fold, I can never smooth out the seam that your hands once warmed and that has now gone completely cold, just as I can never figure out how such a real stretch of days could vanish, just like that.
I often think we did nothing wrong—we simply were not permitted to keep that umbrella open all the way to the end.
The rain still hasn't stopped. I smooth the umbrella flat, rib by rib, as if smoothing out a memory that can no longer be recovered yet has never quite lain flat. Every rib my fingertips trace is another walk back through all the rain we once stood in together.
The warmth we truly held once now reaches only across rain after rain, to miss you from afar. And I will probably take many years, many rains, to slowly learn to fold this away.
When the rain began to fall, and I snapped the umbrella open, I remembered those years when the two of us shared a single umbrella.
You were always tipping it toward my side. My shoulder stayed dry while yours soaked through. I had noticed it long ago, and I had let you go on doing it, never once telling you to straighten it up. When we'd fold it away, we moved in perfect rhythm—you'd close the ribs, I'd smooth the fabric. Neither of us had to say a word, yet our hands always matched. Back then I never thought any of this was worth remembering. I took it for granted the way I took eating and walking for granted, just one more ordinary part of daily life.
We held hands. At a corner where no one could see us, in the darkness after a movie let out. My hands were always cold, and you would warm them, palm to palm, bit by bit, until I would finally turn and grip your fingers back. That was the one thing I was most sure of back then—that around the next street corner, your hand would find mine again, as if it had never let go.
I remember how you laughed, low, as if afraid someone might overhear, so it fell only on my ears. I remember that on rainy days you would slip the umbrella into my backpack ahead of time, yet often forget your own. I remember the way you smoothed my collar—so light, fingertips grazing my neck, and we both pretended not to notice. I remember the half-step you deliberately slowed when you walked beside me, so that our shoulders always kept a distance I could never quite decide was deliberate or just a habit. I remember the short message you sent late at night, just asking "Did you make it home?"—and yet I could read it over and over and find a dozen meanings in it.
In those years, we turned season after season of rain into the ordinary. We hurried through the plum rains together, kept a single lamp burning through typhoons together, and remembered each other's birthdays better than our own. You spoke little, but slowly I learned to read the words you never said—in the force with which you closed the umbrella, in the half-second pause when you handed me something, in the way your throat moved when you held back a sentence. I thought that if I could read you so thoroughly, I could keep you.
I thought the days would simply go on like this, that there was no need to hold on to them, because they would always be there.
Then came one thing after another that we could not control, piling up and wrenching us apart from each other's lives. There was no proper goodbye, not even the chance to finish the sentence we'd meant to say. The warmth of each other's hands still lingered in our palms, yet we had already walked away, each on our own.
Now that I hold an umbrella alone, I understand that a two-person rhythm simply cannot exist when one person is gone. You close the ribs, I smooth the fabric—that division of labor is now mine alone, which I have to relearn clumsily from scratch. However I fold, I can never smooth out the seam that your hands once warmed and that has now gone completely cold, just as I can never figure out how such a real stretch of days could vanish, just like that.
I often think we did nothing wrong—we simply were not permitted to keep that umbrella open all the way to the end.
The rain still hasn't stopped. I smooth the umbrella flat, rib by rib, as if smoothing out a memory that can no longer be recovered yet has never quite lain flat. Every rib my fingertips trace is another walk back through all the rain we once stood in together.
The warmth we truly held once now reaches only across rain after rain, to miss you from afar. And I will probably take many years, many rains, to slowly learn to fold this away.