I woke up the next morning to the sound of rain pitter-pattering against my window. My eyelids felt heavy and I wondered if I had woken up too early because as far as I could tell, it was still dark in my room. I opened my eyes, stretching and yawning. The sound of the rain was so calming and peaceful and I smiled to myself about how it always seemed to be the sounds associated with water that put me in a peaceful state. Yesterday, it had been the ocean and now it was the drizzle that must have started at some point during the night.

Glancing at my bedside clock, I was surprised to see that it was actually almost eleven in the morning. Then I realized that the rain meant that it would be cloudy outside which is why it wouldn't be bright and sunny in my room as it had been most other mornings.

Rolling over onto my back, I simply laid there and stared at the ceiling. After a few moments, I could feel the rain lulling me back to sleep and I took a deep breath to try and stave off the instinct to close my eyes. Instantly, the smell of the ocean assaulted my nose. Even though I had showered the second I got back in the house last night, the day was still on my skin. I could see it in the noticeable tan that had darkened my skin and I could smell it in my hair.

I held my hand up in front of my face, eyeing it speculatively. The sun had definitely done its work on me. Where I had been awfully pale before, golden-brown skin now gave me a nice, alive look. It was funny; Taeyeon had been adamant about using sunscreen and even though he forced me to wear SPF 50 or something like that, I still managed to tan perfectly. Not counting my tan lines, of course. I pulled the collar of my t-shirt down to inspect the damage. With a sigh, I saw that my bikini had definitely left its mark in the spaghetti thin tan lines on my shoulders. Even though I had attempted to account for the time in which I wouldn't have dared to take off the straps of my top by doing just that for a couple hours, in the end it hadn't been soon enough.

I supposed they weren't terribly noticeable. I had helped a little bit. I ran a finger down the line with a frown and then readjusted my t-shirt, deciding not to care anymore. Tan lines were the least of my concern anyway.

From the corner of my eye, I could see my cell phone on my dresser where I had carelessly thrown it before going to bed. I wanted to go and get it now, in case anything had happened or someone had texted me. In case Taeyeon had told me news about his mother. I didn't know when her appointment was; he didn't say anything about that yesterday. Still, I could tell that it was hard for him to tell me that in the first place.

Just the thought of his mother having to go to a doctor's appointment made me anxious for him. It was amazing how little time we had spent together in comparison to others who were as close as we already were. I mean, Tiff and I have known each other for years, but even our relationship didn't happen as quickly and as thoroughly as mine and Taeyeon's did. Of course, whenever there is another person's life at stake you're naturally inclined to feel something for that person, but it truly did make my heart hurt for him to know that there could be something wrong with his mother.

He hadn't told me much about her. In fact, I hadn't known that she was sick until he told me that day when we were talking about Hong Kong. After that, he never said anything else. I always wondered and I always wanted to ask, but I could tell that it was a tender subject. For anything to be a tender subject to a guy like Taeyeon, I knew better than to try and probe him about her. Still, I couldn't help but be curious about exactly what was going on. What kind of cancer was it? How advanced was it? Was she in remission all this time? How long had she had it? Was there anything that could be done?

As soon as I thought of those questions I mentally admonished myself with a hard shake of my head. I knew better than to be so nosy. If he wanted to tell me, he would have. Or he will. It's truly not my business in the first place; I was lucky he was telling me anything at all. I was lucky that I knew anything past what his name was. It was me who had the incredibly large mouth and talked about myself all the time. He probably knew more about me than I would ever know about him. But that was just something that I was going to be okay with. Like I said, it wasn't my place to ask him hard questions like that. No matter how much I was dying to know, I wouldn't do that to him.

Still, just hearing the carefully way he had told me about her doctor's appointment showed how hard it was. I got the feeling that this had happened before and he was prepared for rough news. As a matter of fact, I almost wanted to offer to go with him even though I knew how awkward it would have been for him. I don't know much about his dad either, but from the way Taeyeon has turned out I can only assume that his father is also another very strong man. I wondered if they both put up a front when they were with other people and waited until they were in private to let the events of the day hit them. I wondered how they would deal with hearing bad news.

My heart started to race at the thought and I took another deep breath to calm myself down. I was being stupid and negative for no reason. Of course Taeyeon's mother was going to be fine. Of course whatever it was that had made her feel sick was nothing major. And of course Taeyeon would be fine too. He was a big boy and I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't my job to take care of him, even when I saw the unevenness of his smile last night before he left.

In a way, I was getting the feeling that he wanted me to go with him, too. The way he kept looking at me in the driveway seemed to hint to that. He didn't want to leave. He didn't want to have to go home and face the reality of his mother's sickness. He wanted to stay with me in the fantasy world of fun and laughter that we had created throughout the day. In a way, he never wanted our beach day to end.

Or maybe I was just imagining things.

I shut my eyes, running a hand over my face. I needed to get up. It was too late in the morning for me to try and go back to sleep without feeling like a completely worthless bum once I woke up again and besides I needed to find something to eat at some point. There was a rumble of thunder that sounded far away so I figured that meant a storm was moving in, albeit very slowly. That was a good thing. I couldn't think of the last time it had rained. Definitely not at any point after graduation, or even the last two months of school in general. We could all use a nice dousing.

I got up begrudgingly and headed to the bathroom. For a minute, I considered taking another shower to try and get the rest of the saltwater out of my hair but changed my mind. Instead, I simply splashed some cold water on my face to help wake me up and then went to my closet. Grabbing a pair of comfy sweatpants and jamming my feet into my favorite pair of slippers, I left my room and went downstairs. Along the way I threw my hair up into a ponytail just to keep it out of my face.

Once again I was put off by the total silence of the house. It made me think about my parents and if they were ever going to come home. They had already been gone for an entire month. I didn't even know the cruise was supposed to go that long, and my mother had said that it would be a couple more weeks still. I don't know what cruise they were on but it definitely wasn't any that I had ever heard of.

I would be heading off to college in another few weeks. Six more, to be exact. That was a scary thought for me, but also an exciting one. I couldn't believe that four weeks had passed already. It seemed like it had been longer than that considering all that I had done already. But at the same time, it was going by alarmingly fast.

What was worse was that all of us didn't have six weeks. If Taeyeon did decide to go to Hong Kong, he would be leaving a full week early than me. That meant that he only had five weeks left. Of course if he stayed with his full scholarship then we would be leaving about the same time but I simply couldn't find it in myself to consider him doing anything but going to Hong Kong. It was where he belonged. He would still be taking classes there; from what I understood the acting company that wanted to take him on planned on sending him to a local college. So really, he had a full ride either way. The only difference was that in Hong Kong he would have a full ride and a job.

Still, I had to admit that I was torn. His scholarship was for a college in Seoul. If he did end up choosing that then we would stay close. I was going to a public school and he would be going to a private one, but we'd still be in the same country, at least. 

I wandered into the kitchen and surveyed what was in the fridge. There really wasn't much which made me long for my mother once again. She always had food in the fridge