“Rain in December”
The first time Ella saw him, he was dancing in the rain — in December. No umbrella, no jacket, just a crooked smile and soaked hair. She thought he was insane.
“You’re going to catch a cold,” she yelled, watching from the bookstore window.
He looked up, grinned, and shouted back, “Better to catch a cold than miss the feeling of being alive.”
Two days later, he walked into the shop. Rain dripped from his coat. “I caught the cold,” he said, sneezing. “Can I have some tea and your name?”
Ella laughed. She made him chamomile and told him her name.
His was Leo. A photographer chasing moments that felt like magic.
Over books and rainy afternoons, their lives intertwined. She taught him stillness; he taught her chaos. Together, they were poetry — messy, raw, and beautiful.
That December, in the rain, he kissed her for the first time.
And she never used an umbrella again.
