Beneath The Rain

Chapter Five

The rain was a torrent now, a cacophony that drowned out the city's noise. Adrian stood under the awning of the bookstore, Diana's words echoing in his mind.

"Evelyn isn't just a character. She's real."

He stared at her, struggling to form a response. Every thought, every memory, felt like it was slipping through his fingers, leaving behind a disjointed mess of questions.

"What are you talking about?" he finally asked, his voice sharper than he intended.

Diana's gaze flickered, uncertainty flashing across her face. "You've been writing about her—about me—for two years, Adrian. But Evelyn isn't just an idea. She's someone I…" She trailed off, her words swallowed by the rain.

Adrian took a step closer, his frustration mounting. "You're not making any sense. Who is she?"

Diana hesitated, her grip tightening on the handle of her umbrella. "Not here," she said, her voice barely audible over the storm. "Let's go somewhere quiet."

---

They ended up at a small, dimly lit café on the edge of the city. It wasn't their usual kind of place—no familiar faces, no cozy corners. The anonymity of it felt fitting.

Diana sat across from Adrian, her hands wrapped around a steaming mug of tea. She stared down at it, as if searching for the courage to speak.

"Two years," she said finally, her voice trembling. "That's how long I've been waiting to tell you the truth. But I didn't know how. And then I saw your book."

Adrian frowned. "My book?"

She nodded. "The excerpts you've been posting. The things you've written about Evelyn—they're too close, Adrian. Too close to her. To me."

His mind raced. He'd written Evelyn as a reflection of Diana, yes, but only as a way to make sense of his pain. She was never supposed to be real. She was a construct, a bridge between memory and fiction.

"You're saying she's… real?" he asked, his voice low.

Diana looked up, her eyes meeting his. "Yes. And I think you've known that all along."

---

The first crack in Adrian's memory came later that night. He was back in his apartment, the rain hammering against the windows as he paced the room. Diana's words had unsettled something deep within him, something he couldn't quite name.

He sat down at his desk, opening his laptop. The draft of his book stared back at him, the cursor blinking beside the last line he'd written:

"Evelyn had secrets she carried like stones, their weight dragging her deeper into the storm."

The words felt foreign now, like they belonged to someone else. He scrolled back, skimming through the earlier chapters. The details he'd written about Evelyn—the rain-soaked bookstore, the late-night conversations, the laughter that hid a quiet sadness—they were vivid, too vivid for fiction.

Adrian's chest tightened as fragments of memory began to surface, scattered and incomplete. The bookstore. The red umbrella. The way she had looked at him, as if she was both inviting him in and keeping him at arm's length.

It wasn't Diana.

But it wasn't Evelyn, either.

His head throbbed as he tried to piece it together. He shut the laptop and grabbed his notebook, flipping through the pages. Scribbled lines caught his eye:

"She was always just out of reach, like a shadow cast by the rain."

"I thought I knew her, but she was a storm—beautiful, chaotic, and impossible to hold onto."

They weren't just about Diana. They were about someone else, someone he couldn't quite remember.

---

The next day, Adrian found himself back at the café, but this time he wasn't writing. He was watching, waiting.

Emily noticed his restlessness and came over, her curiosity plain on her face. "You've been staring out that window for an hour," she said. "What's going on?"

Adrian hesitated, then decided to tell her. "Diana said something yesterday. Something that doesn't make sense."

Emily sat down across from him, her expression softening. "What did she say?"

"She said Evelyn is real."

Emily frowned. "What does that even mean? Evelyn's just a character, isn't she?"

"That's what I thought," Adrian said, running a hand through his hair. "But now I'm not so sure. The more I think about it, the more it feels like she… like she's someone I've forgotten."

Emily's gaze grew distant, as if she were trying to piece something together herself. "Adrian," she said slowly, "when you first started writing about Evelyn, you told me she came to you in a dream. Do you remember that?"

He nodded. "Yeah. It was just fragments—a face, a voice. I thought I made the rest up."

"But what if you didn't?" Emily's voice was quiet now, almost hesitant. "What if those fragments were memories?"

The idea sent a chill through him. He tried to dismiss it, but the cracks in his memory were growing wider, letting in flashes of something he couldn't ignore.

---

That night, the dreams returned.

He was standing in the rain, the sound of it deafening. A figure stood in front of him, her face obscured by shadows. She was speaking, her voice urgent, but he couldn't make out the words.

"Who are you?" he shouted, but the rain swallowed his voice.

The figure stepped closer, and for a moment, the shadows lifted.

It wasn't Diana.

The face was familiar, but not in the way he expected. She had Diana's laughter, but her smile was softer, her eyes filled with something he couldn't name.

And then she was gone, leaving him alone in the storm.

Adrian woke with a start, his heart pounding. The dream lingered, vivid and unsettling. He reached for his notebook and wrote down everything he could remember, his hand shaking.

"She had Diana's laughter, but her eyes were her own. I knew her. I don't know how, but I knew her."

He stared at the words, the realization settling over him like the weight of the rain.

Evelyn wasn't Diana.

And whoever she was, she was waiting for him to remember.

---

The rain began again, its rhythm steady and insistent, as Adrian sat in the quiet of his apartment. The story wasn't just a story anymore. It was a thread, pulling him toward something he had forgotten, something that felt as vital as the air he breathed.

Somewhere in the storm, the truth was waiting. And Adrian was finally ready to face it.

---