I'm not stomping my feet, I'm pulling my hair out in frustration.
Okay, let's try this...
Look at the above map. The walkway is "T" shaped with the short top part of the "T" running between two streets: Twin Trees and Retreat View Circle. The back entrance to the complex is on Retreat View Circle. Zimmerman was on Twin Trees. He told the police dispatcher that he thought the suspicious person (Martin) was heading towards the back entrance.
It seems logical that Zimmerman would follow that top portion of the "T" over to Retreat View Circle ... but didn't see Martin running down the street towards the back entrance like it thought he would ... he thought he had lost him.
Meanwhile, Martin had actually turned onto the longer part of the "T" walkway, the one that ran through the backyards of the buildings. I believe the father's girlfriend lived in the last one on the right side. Maybe he had seen Zimmerman continue on to Retreat View Circle and felt safe enough to take temporary shelter from the pouring rain under one of the covered porches (apartment building entryways).
A frustrated/disappointed Zimmerman turns around and heads back to Twin Trees. Maybe he sees movement under one of the porches ... maybe on a whim he decides to check out the longer section of the walkway. Since the incident happened on that longer section, somehow or another he got there.
If the rain coming down on Martin was severe enough to make him stop fleeing Zimmerman in fear for his life, wouldn’t it be raining just as hard on Zimmerman? I know how it sometimes rains on one side of the street and not the other, but I’ve never seen a tropical storm on one person and not the person hot on their heels. If Martin had to take shelter, why didn’t Zimmerman? If Martin was in fear for his life, wouldn’t he have had a stronger motivation to keep moving than Zimmerman?
Martin was running while Zimmerman was calmly talking to 911. This is not a 1970s drive-in movie, where the victim is running for his life at top speed, and the monster is lumbering along at a snail’s pace but still catches the victim.
The only way they could have come together after Martin left the area is if Martin returned to the area. If he never left the area, that blows a whole in the theory that Zimmerman was stalking him and Martin was afraid. If he was running for his life from someone he thought would harm him, the fear of getting wet would not be enough to make him stop running. If it was more than just getting wet, and it turned into a life threatening storm, Zimmerman would have been caught up in the same storm, along with the witnesses who never said a word about it.
Either Martin left the area and then returned because Zimmerman didn’t scare him, or he never left the area because Zimmerman didn’t scare him. Either way, Zimmerman was not the aggressor.