Clouds lied. This was a law in Quid’s book. Clouds didn’t mean that it would rain and they also didn’t mean that you could leave the sunscreen at home. Clouds made it difficult to see what time of day it was really was, they made it hard to get out of bed, and sometimes the descended to earth and became stifling fog.

It wasn’t until Galen that Quid came to appreciate the sky. Galen never let her stay inside all day long. He would wrestle her away from books or the computer or her phone and drag her grocery shopping or touristing or just out for a walk. Today he pulled her along to the park, stopping often to admire the architecture. He kept her hand in his and would randomly raise it to his lips and kiss it.

They reached the park and he found an open patch of grass and pulled her down to lie in it. For a few minutes they were both quiet, the sun warm on their skin, the long grass vaguely prickly. Galen was smiling and Quid fidgeted. She was about to open her mouth and demand to know what was going on when Galen spoke.

“It looks like a teapot,” he said.

“What does?” Quid turned her head to frown at him.

“That cloud, look.” Galen raised his arm and traced out the shape of a teapot. “And that one is a banana.”

Quid lay there for a solid twenty minutes listening to Galen hold a one-sided conversation about clouds and what they looked like.

“No, it looks more like a minotaur,” she said finally.

“How so?” Galen twisted his head to one side to try and see the cloud better.

Quid raised her arm and traced it out.

“Nice one,” Galen said and Quid smiled.

The next time she left the house, Quid looked up instead of straight ahead or at her feet.