I wrote this as a story cloud but I wrote this more because I needed to..

“Uggh I wish it would stop raining,” Peter let out as he turned away from the large store windows. Yenneh continued to stare at the silver sheets underneath the street lights.
“I like the rain,” He said as softly as a fresh bran muffin, rough and guttural yet fluffy and full. His face was symmetrical and young. At first glance he looked like Carl Banks from Fresh Prince.
“Yeah it’s nice, but I’ve got to drive home to Plymouth.” Peter said exasperated. “Did you want a ride tonight?”
“No that’s ok.” There was a tired look on Peter’s face that woke up when he looked back out at the rain. Yenneh turned and raised his palm to face Peter. “Really, it’s ok. I do not mind the walk.”
“Do you have an umbrella?”
“No.”
“And you want to walk?”
“I’m saying that it is ok.” Yenneh said calmly.
“Okay suit yourself.” Peter said as he walked back towards the cash registers. There were four in the front of the store lined up parallel, lane to lane, candy rack to candy rack, in anticipation for business; but, the packs of XyliChew Gum looked dim in the vacancy Peter saw across the whole store. Peter looked back at Yenneh,
“Hey I’m gonna go downstairs to the bathroom if you want to count down that drawer.”
“Okay,” Yenneh said as he turned back towards the windows. They were truly large, Yenneh had never seen any so big. Between the store signs, the rain danced on uninterrupted by the buses and cars that sped down Penn Ave, and he got the feeling that it would continue for a long time. His mind began to wander with the cows down dirt roads. Ethiopia seemed like a long time ago and yet it rained.

The rain began to pool in the center of the roof, but it still stood better than the roof-turned-water hammock above the bus stop across the road. The sticks that held the roof above Yenneh would barely last through the next year, but at least they had corrugated metal gutters to let the rain funnel off, and at the ends of the gutters clothed and naked children would line up to wash themselves.
The road looked like you could skin your knee on a slip-n-slide down it, the rough jagged dirt had a texture mix between a softball infield and instant-coffee crystals.
And he got the comfortable feeling that the rain would continue for a long time.
“Why do you wait and then walk? It makes no sense,” A young woman asked who stood by him.
“I wait because if the bus does not come, then we can walk home together,” Yenneh replied in that same earthy way.
“I would not walk with you. The bus will come,” the woman said resolutely without looking at him.
Yenneh turned and lifted his head towards the clouds.
“I understand,” he said as the rain dripped down his noes. It stalagmited (the one that hangs?) at the end of his nose but he didn’t wipe it away and it fell as he walked toward the road. The woman watched his back as he started to walk down the road head lowered toward the ground. He looked like someone you would feel bad for.
‘But what I don’t understand, is why anyone would not try something before they cast you away,” Yenneh thought as he walked with his eyes fixed on the rocks that his feet embraced. He could feel the best part of his walk start, the rain was falling from the tender black curls that fuzzed down his neck. It rolled across the stress of his neck and the heat built up from walking cattle all day. He could feel the wind convect his discomforts off his skin and slowly he fell into a wave of warmth that prick ed tickles into his skin, it ran from his elbows to his shoulders, his middle back to his neck, in waves that ran with each thought out of his head. He wished they could see why he did this, he wished they could all see why. They couldn’t feel what he felt and for that he almost cried every walk home. He wasn’t sad like she thought, not for himself at least, but for her and the beauty she couldn’t see.

“Weren’t you gonna count those drawers?” Peter asked as he looked back at the rain and the clock
“Sorry I was just distracted.”
“It’s okay I just want to get out of here. I hope this rain doesn’t go until the morning. I have school.”
“I’m sure it will be okay,” Yenneh said from outside of Peter’s peripherals.
“Are you sure you don’t want a ride home,” Peter asked again.
“Yes I’m sure. My wife’s bus will be here soon and we will walk.”
“You’re going to walk? I can give you and your wife a ride, there’s plenty of room in the Taurus,” Peter said with a motion toward the green car in the lot.
“It’s okay, really, my wife likes the rain,” Yenneh said with a smile.