Grace: I’m on my way. It’s a bit of a walk.
Brock: Shit. I can come closer?
Grace: I’ll walk, no worries. But if I get kidnapped, it’s on you.
Brock: Damn it.
I put on my favorite playlist for the walk and tuned out all the swirling thoughts about the future and focused on the lyrics. It wasn’t until I saw his car in the distance when the first clap of thunder boomed, jolting my senses. I jumped, ripping the headphones out of my ears. The sky was a bluish green and getting darker by the minute.
It was the Midwest. We could experience every season in a week. February could be in the sixties, and the next day could be a blizzard. It had happened, and the beautiful fall day was no different. Lightning danced across the sky, zig-zagging and lighting up the dark campus. I stood, mesmerized by the flashes.
I remembered one summer, some pre-teen age. It was like this, a sudden thunderstorm, and my mom and I were drawing with chalk and designing our dream house. Mine had purple shutters because it was princess themed. I went through a phase, but it was very short lived. We stood watching the rain fall and let it hit us in the face. We danced. We laughed. The thunder cheering us on instead of scaring us. I smiled, the memory one I hadn’t thought about it years. It was sweet and felt like a hug from her.
“Grace! What the hell are you doing?”
Brock jogged over to me with a hat. I shrugged, holding my bag tighter to my chest. “Enjoying the rain.”
“It’s a bad storm. I just got an alert. Come on, let’s go.” He gripped my elbow, motioning to the direction of the car. His voice had the right amount of incredulousness. I may have looked a bit crazy. I still hadn’t responded, or moved for that matter. “Grace,” he said again, with a voice more firm.
“Yeah. Let’s head in.”
“Do you find it a habit to stand outside in a severe storm?” he asked, jogging at a slow pace with me. The rain came down harder, the lightning becoming more aggressive. The first inkling of fear crept it. How long would I have stood there?
“Typically, no,” I answered, sliding on the wet pavement. “I was in a daydream of sorts.”
He shook his head, opening the passenger door for me and motioning for me to get it. I obeyed because it was raining, hard, and because the frown lines on his face became more apparent by the second. Before the door shut, he released a string of cuss words. I buckled myself in and felt the tension in the car rise about ten thousands degrees when he entered.
“Damn it, Grace.” He shook his hair out, and wet drops landed on me. Then, he started the car, ordered me to turn on the radio.
I obliged, sensing his worry.
If you are outside in any of the central counties, take cover. There has been a tornado sighting ten miles southwest of the city. It is moving toward us and is expected to arrive within ten minutes. This is a tornado warning people. Find shelter.
“Jesus,” I whispered, clutching the edge of the car. “What do we do?”
“I live two minutes from here. We’re going there,” he barked.
I gnawed on my bottom lip, tearing it to pieces. We had watches all the time, even severe storm alerts. But tornados? They were a different sort of fear. No sooner than he told me the plan, the sirens went off.
I gulped.
Regardless of the monthly tornado drills I did in school growing up, the sound of the siren, piercing and terrifying, went straight to my gut. I gripped the sidebar harder, clenching my fists. Brock sped up, his hands tense enough to break the wheel.
That was the longest two minutes of my life. The wind whipped the trees around us, and the rain came down so hard it was hard to see. I remembered how heavy rain meant the tornado wasn’t there yet because when the funnel was near it sucked up all the rain. If we saw hail, though, that meant it was close.
“Shit,” I whispered as golf-ball-sized hail hit the windshield. “Brock?”
“Almost there. Hold tight,” he said.
I sat there, helpless and scared shitless. I wasn’t super religious, going through the anger and blaming phase when my mom went through her sickness. Yet, I found myself praying and promising to be a better person if we made it safely.
It felt like a year had passed when he pulled into a bricked driveway, and he threw the car in park. “Let’s go!”
I dove out of the car, slamming the door shut and getting pelted with hail. The rain hit my face, my arms, everything. Hail clinked off the car and bounced on the ground making it look like snow. Brock grabbed my hand and dragged me toward his back door while shielding me with his body.
“Almost there. Shit,” he mumbled, finally getting the door open. “Basement is on the right. Head down there. I’ll grab a flashlight and radio.”
I had no intention of disagreeing. Feeling for a light switch, I eased down the carpeted stairs in the dark. My fingers connected with a switch at the bottom and flicked it on. Nothing happened. I fumbled for my phone and used the flashlight to guide my way. An old couch, a foosball table, and unpacked boxes. On the creeper basement scale, it wasn’t a ten, but it was somewhere between a three and four. I pulled up my weather app and saw the severity of the storm was on us now. Sharp red and yellow took over the radar and fear took root. Brock still wasn’t downstairs. I counted to one hundred, taking deep breaths and just as I was about to go upstairs to find him, the stairs creaked.
