low pressure system

She is crossing the street in front of her house, walking through the wind and rain with her umbrella. Her lover is following after, saying, "Wait," and, "Come back." He is pleading with her. She stops just by the curb and turns around. The wind catches her umbrella, opening it too far. She struggles with it, growing increasingly angry and frustrated, as he tries to apologize, too little, too late. "Fuck you," she says, and throws the umbrella at him, defeated. It will lie there in the street for the next several days.

Now she is on the train, and she is dripping wet and she is hoping that nobody notices that she has been crying. She isn't confident of this fact. She gets off earlier than she should and walks the rest of the way, because she is wet anyway and maybe she'll calm down by the time she gets in to work. She doesn't.

Now she is at the bar with her friends, and she is putting on a smile, and they don't know that she is angry and frustrated or notice the cracks in her smile or the dark look in her eyes. She is focused on getting drunk, and flirting with a boy she only invited so she could get back at her lover, but for the moment she is concerned that maybe she is laughing a little too loudly. While she is at the bar getting another round, he is calling her lover and telling him to come.

Now she is drunk and her lover has just arrived, and she kisses the boy she invited, though he pushes her away, confused and a little hurt. "You're drunk," he accuses, but the damage is done. Most of her friends leave before it can turn ugly; she steps outside in the growing storm with her lover and screams at him until her voice is hoarse. And he simply looks sad and apologizes again and leaves. She orders another round.

Now her best friend is helping her to the bathroom. She is vomiting and her friend is holding her hair back and trying to comfort her; she keeps insisting it's fine in a cracking voice. Neither of them are convinced.

Now they are sharing a cab back home, and she is leaning against the window with her eyes tightly shut against the spinning world, regretting everything. As they arrive and she tries to walk back home, she stumbles and falls into a puddle by the curb, a few feet away from her discarded umbrella. Her friend helps her to her feet and helps her inside, where she collapses on her bed with her clothes still on.