The Day the Rain Smelled Like Him

 

  People say the scent of rain carries memories, that it smells like new beginnings, like the earth taking a deep breath after holding back for too long. But that day, it didn’t smell like roses or fresh dust, it smelled like him. Like the warmth I once called home.

I had always imagined falling in love under the rain, like those movie scenes where everything slows down, and two souls meet by accident, drenched but smiling. I thought love would find me like that... soft, poetic, inevitable.

  The first raindrop hit the window with a soft tap, hesitant, like someone knocking and changing their mind halfway.

  By the time I walked to the balcony, the clouds had already given up pretending. The rain came down gently at first, the kind that makes you want to reach out and let it kiss your fingers.

  People always said they loved the sound of rain. But for me, it was the smell , the scent that rose from the ground like a memory. That day, it smelled like him.

I froze. It had been years since I thought about Daniel.

  The air was thick with petrichor.. wet soil, dust, and something faintly sweet. I closed my eyes, and suddenly, I was nineteen again.. what a throwback! I thought to myself .

It was raining that afternoon too, the day I met him.

  I had been running down the market street, clutching a leaking nylon of groceries that mom sent me to buy, when the storm caught me halfway. He was standing under the shade of a tree infront of a bookshop, laughing quietly as people scrambled for shelter from the heavy downpour.

“You look like a lost kitten,” he teased, stretching his hand out.

I wanted to snap back, but his voice had that calm, deep and unhurried. So I laughed instead and joined him under the tree’s narrow shelter.

Rainwater ran off the leaves in shimmering sheets. He smelled faintly of old paper and something else... a warm, clean scent that I would come to recognize anywhere.

He introduced himself while shaking the rain off his shirt. "Daniel. You?"  "Chioma," I said, trying to wring water from my hair, protecting the groceries in the nylon bag which didn’t seem that strong.

"That’s beautiful," he replied. “You look like someone who reads poetry.”

I rolled my eyes. "You just met me." "I don’t just read, I live in it" “True," he smiled. "But I have a thing for guessing people’s stories."

    That was how it began, with laughter and wet clothes and the sound of rain beating against the city.

We spent months after that finding reasons to walk in the rain. Sometimes we would sit by the window of a small café, watching each tiny drops race each other down the glass. Other days, we would walk through puddles, careless and young, pretending the world couldn’t touch us.

He would say, "Rain makes the world honest."

And I would answer, "Maybe that’s why people fall in love in it."

He would laugh, and I would tuck the sound away somewhere safe.

---

  The last time we saw each other, it rained too.

We were standing by the old bus park. He was leaving for Abuja, he got a new job, and obviously a new life. I tried to sound brave when I said, ''You will call me, won’t you?"

He nodded, but we both knew he wouldn’t.

The rain came without warning again. We didn’t run this time. We stood there, soaked, the world blurring around us.

He cupped my face and said, "If you ever miss me, just step outside when it rains. You will find me there."

And then he was gone.

---

Now, years later, the sky had opened again.. as if keeping its promise... probably serving as a reminder 

The scent was stronger this time, mixed with the faint perfume of lilies from my balcony plant. I leaned against the railing, closing my eyes as the wind brushed against my face.

It was strange, how something as simple as rain could carry a person back to a time, where a touch and a heartbeat was shared.

I smiled through the drizzle. Maybe love didn’t always need to stay. Maybe sometimes it just needed to be remembered.

The rain stopped, and a white bird perched on the railing beside me. It shook its feathers and then took off into the gray sky, free and unbothered.

And for the first time in years, I didn’t cry, because that day, the rain didn’t just smell like him,

it smelled like closure. Maybe because I believed in fairy tales...

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