When It Rains: The Umbrella Collection by Prudence Hayes

He just hops to the next one in line and laughs off the previous affair. I’m hoping he will laugh this off, too.
    As I glanced out the window, I slowly started to see the hood of Richie’s car begin to fill with tiny droplets as the rain clouds began to empty their contents, faster and faster.
    “My interior!” I heard Richie yell, who grabbed at his hair with both hands out of rage. His yelling was almost overshadowed by the thunderous sound of John’s pickup truck coming down the road. He had a ‘Hey, look at me’ truck. One that was so obnoxious you couldn’t contain yourself and had to look and you could hear it coming from a mile away. His lady friends loved it.
    When John’s truck screeched to a halt, he exited the driver’s side door, pulled his hoodie over his head so the wetness didn’t hit it and he took a few steps towards the scene of the crime until he stopped and spun around. He retraced his footsteps back to the truck and opened the back driver’s side door. He bent over to grab something, slammed the door shut and he appeared again in my direction, holding my baby blue umbrella that I shoved under his seat just in case he or I ever needed it. Everyone in my family has one in the same spot in their cars.
    He marched up to where Richie was still pacing. From my point of view, based on the animation exuding from Richie’s body, he was still pretty angry and informing John of the story. His arms flew in the air, his feet stomped and his finger pointed in my direction. John followed his finger and looked at me at that point; his face didn’t hold the typical ‘whatever’  expression. A look of tension now covered it and for the first time in my life I could tell he was disappointed and angry with me. He stood speaking to Richie and trying to calm him down. After a few minutes, he turned his attention to the front door of the mart and opened it to poke his head in.
    “Let’s go,” he said holding the door open for me.
    I went without saying a word. He opened the umbrella and the beauty of the baby blue was a stark contrast to what laid just beyond it, the destruction that I caused. We started off towards the truck, but making a pit stop by Richie’s side so John could apologize again for my lack my thinking.   He then told Richie to give him a call with the estimates and he would take care of it.  They shock hands and Richie gave me one last glare full of hate.
      “Yeah, I’m sorry,” I said with my head aimed at the ground for the sake of not having to look him in the face anymore.
    I walked back to the truck with John holding the umbrella over my head and hopped into the passenger seat and waited for John to get into the truck on the other side. We sat in silence for a while and during that time I wanted to open my door and jump out. By the look on his face, if there was any hesitation in my jumping he would have joined in on the fun and helped me out. Then he would have ran me over like a speed bump. Of course, he had a reason to be angry; everyone had a reason to be angry at me. There is no denying that here. Shit, I’m probably the maddest of all at my actions. I could tell he was getting antsy; he fidgeted in his seat, kept changing the station on the radio, even though perfectly good songs were on and his head turned to me for a second or two and then back again.  He was the first to break the silence.
    “What in the fucking world made you do that?” he asked angrily with one hand on the steering wheel and most of his body turned towards me .  He glanced back and forth at the road and myself waiting for my answer. But, none came. I sat there looking blankly out the window, mesmerized by the quickly changing scenery and ignoring the impeding conversation.
    “Oh, so you aren’t talking to me! Did I throw a hissy fit and decide to blow out your friend’s window? No, I didn’t. You did. You are paying me back every fucking cent, too.”
    There was a long pause and I could feel