At first we couldn’t tell whether the giant booms originated from outside or the big screen. The action flick Steven and I had chosen for date night had its own share of dramatic explosions. By the time the movie ended, the muffled hum of a downpour had joined the thunder and droned on after the end credits. We milled about in the lobby with the rest of those caught unprepared, making awkward conversation about the storm while we waited for it to let up. After the third “It’s crazy out there” and no indication that it was getting less crazy anytime soon, Steven draped our movie blanket over his head and disappeared into the wall of water to bring the car around. I had scoffed at the big, blue sherpa when he bought it for me with instructions to leave it in the car for movie nights. I wasn’t lugging that big-ass comforter into the theater and bringing attention to my overnight-sized bag full of dollar store candy and sparkling water. “These people don’t get paid enough to care about outside snacks,” he’d said. “Just leave the blanket in the car and I’ll carry it.” He held it over my head like a canopy as I climbed into the driver’s seat. A satisfied smile crinkled the corners of his eyes as he slid into the passenger seat a few moments later. “Uh huh, that big-ass comforter came through in the clutch, didn’t it?” he teased. We laughed as I pulled away from the curb and into the blinding, sideways rain. Three months into dating and we were still having these tiny little moments that felt like punctuation in our origin story. That Time We Got Caught In The Crazy Storm and I Had to Eat Crow was already in development.
The wipers thumped furiously back and forth trying to beat back the buckets of water, but only distorted the view instead of clearing it. The headlights illuminated the deluge just past the hood of the car, then dropped off into darkness. Steven was uncharacteristically quiet while the slick road demanded my attention. I crept along with my seat pulled close to the steering wheel, straining to see the underwater lines on the road so I could keep the car between them. We passed more prudent drivers who had pulled over to the roadside and considered doing the same, when a large shadow in the next lane over began to take shape through the rain. A man pushing a stalled pickup truck materialized out of the torrent. “Whoa! That’s dangerou-!” Steven was in the middle of the downpour before I finished the sentence. Before I had time to wonder why he was opening the door of a moving car, he was out there pushing the same truck I would have crashed into if I had been one lane over. “Oh my God!” I whispered under my breath. I put the blinkers on and pulled into the lane behind them, watching helplessly as the stranger push-steered the truck from the open driver’s door while Steven pushed from the rear, both shaking their heads like wet dogs in the relentless rain.
A few minutes later, the truck and its driver were safely on the roadside and Steven was jogging back to the car, soaking wet and hair plastered to his forehead. He fell into the seat with a squishing sound, tilted his head back and closed his eyes. I watched his wet t-shirt rise and fall with his chest as he slowed his breathing. I was just as surprised by the dread I’d felt when he ran into the storm, as I was by this enveloping sense of relief now that he was safe by my side again. The danger became more real to me once somebody I love was threatened by it, but his heart was big enough to carry that same love for everyone. Who was this man, jumping out of moving cars and into storms to help a stranger, like some kind of Superman?
“Sorry about your seats, babe,” he said. He grabbed the big-ass blanket from the back seat and rubbed it across his face before sliding it onto the seat beneath him.
“That was really nice of you,” I said. He smiled and shrugged, his sheepishness made all the more endearing because of its rarity. The storm still raged around us but the night was starting to take on a different feel, more pivotal than punctuation. This night, The Night I Knew I Was Going To Marry This Man, was a canon event.
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