Summer
Summer romance is a whirlwind that passes just as fast as it comes. On a hot summer day on the way to buy a jug of milk I met a boy outside the supermarket. He became my first boyfriend and he was perfect. He put up with me when I was angry. He gave me hugs when I was sad. He kissed my face when I felt lonely. That summer I was blind to anyone and everyone outside of what was us. Those who vied for my attention no longer existed. Everyday people on the street ceased to be seen. My world was him and he was my world and that is exactly what made it so devastating when my world exploded and everything that I ever had and ever loved was viciously ripped away from me. In the blink of an eye. Never to be seen again.
Halfway through the summer I told him I loved him. “I love you,” I said. “I’ll love you today, I’ll love you tomorrow, I’ll love you for as long as I possibly can.” That’s what I told him. I said it so I meant it. He touched my face with his hands, those hands that I loved so much, and told me sweet words. “I love you, too,” he said. “I love you today, I know I’ll love you tomorrow and I’ll love you until I don’t know how to anymore.” That’s what he said. With meaning and purpose and the illusion that that meant forever. I touched his face with my lips, the lips that gave out all my love, and repeated his words and he repeated my words until we were nothing but a circle. The cycle continued until our clothes were a pile on the floor and our essences took over all of our senses. Our world turned into heaven and earth over and over again, so many times that I found it impossible to keep count. Love, love and more love. In that moment it felt like neither of us knew anything else.
An entire lazy summer managed to pass with us wrapped into each other this way. Hands touching, noses bumping, lips caressing, pushing, pulling, holding. Shared ice cream and carnivals. Joy and laughter. Thoughts and promises. Everything we were rolled up into one summer that stretched on like a hazy day, one long beautiful day. But our day was drawing to a close, as the summer was ending and a new school year reared its ugly head. School supplies, binders, notebooks, textbooks. Everything getting in the way of our world and our summer day and tearing away at us. It was dreadful. We just weren’t ready for the invasion of new people upon our world. What we had was too fresh and too new for the inclusion of others and their prying eyes and judging mouths. He took me by the hand one day and pulled me with no words for minutes on end. “This will be our place,” he said. “Every day after school, I’ll come here and you’ll come here and we’ll be together again. Just us.” He was perfect enough to give me hope for the future. The future of us. The future that we would be able to face together.
The first week of classes was a haze and I was nothing but a zombie, going through the motions of life until 3 o’clock when classes were over and I was free to run back to him. And run I did. As fast as my feet were able to carry me. So fast that it almost felt like flying and I’m certain that once I got to him, I did. My feet would lift off the ground and catapult me into his arms and surround me with his scent. We could once again be our world and whatever happened throughout our day had never occurred. Whoever had been mean to us, whoever we had made friends with, they had never been met. They weren’t allowed in our world. “I love you,” we would say. And then we’d say it again with our eyes and our mouths and our hands. We said it and swore that we meant it.
Every day was like this for a while until… it’s wasn’t. On a Thursday after a particularly upsetting day - I had failed a math test - I wanted nothing more than to fly again into his arms and have him tell me with kisses that everything was going to be okay, but on that day he never did. I showed up, but he wasn’t there. I waited, and he never came. He wasn’t answering my phone calls. He wasn’t responding to my text messages. He just wasn’t there. And then I got worried. “He would never just leave me here, alone,” I said. “Something must have happened to him.” And then I got frantic, my imagination taking me places that I never needed to go. What if he was hurt? What if he got hit by a car on the way here? What if he was calling out to me and I couldn’t hear him and wasn’t there to help him?
I dropped everything I had and ran as fast as possible in the direction of his house. Anything to get to him. Anything to help him. Anything to be there. But I was stopped. Whatever I was seeing had to have been unreal. I had to have been dreaming. Maybe I was the one who had fallen down and hit my head because what I was seeing made no realistic sense. He was at the bus stop a few blocks from his house and he was with another girl. Telling her my sweet words. Touching her with the perfect hands that used to be mine. Kissing her with the lips that used to kiss me. All of the love built over the summer, given away to some girl with a slightly crooked smile, too much make up, and hair the color of night. And it hurt. It hurt more than words were accurately able to describe. My sob is what alerted him to my presence, too wrapped up in the female next to him to take notice of me any sooner. The look on his face as he noticed me is what hurt the most. Resignation. This is the way it has to be. This is what it is.
“It’s just too hard,” he told me. Three days of silence later. Three days of waiting and hoping that what I saw was somehow a mistake. Three days of leaving our spot alone after having waited under a tree. Three days of pillows wet from tears and a throat raspy from disuse. “It’s just too hard for us to be together. She goes to my school and she’s able to be there for me when you aren’t. Do you understand?” A question I was unable to answer without showing my anger. “No,” I replied. “I don’t understand. I feel like everything you ever told me was a lie. You won’t love me forever and I will not ask you to.” This perfect man, my perfect man, like an image cracking in front of my eyes. Single-handedly destroying my world. I cried when I was finished talking, and I cried some more after he did nothing to soothe me. I did nothing but cry as he turned and walked away from me and I cried long into the hours after he was gone. It felt like forever until I ran out of tears.
Days after I had finally been able to get out of my bed without the weight of my heartache crushing down on me with each step, I saw them together. My love no-longer, and his love ever-more, together in what used to be ’our spot.’ And I waited patiently for the pain to come back and bring me to my knees. Cripple me until I could no longer move. Hurt me until I could no longer feel. And something came. A slight pang. An emptiness inside of me. And it hurt, but it did not hurt as much as I had expected it to. A ghost of what it once was, a sign that I would be able to be okay. I looked around at the trees and noted the red leaves that were falling around me. The brown grass beneath my feet that crunched under the weight of my footsteps. The wind howled around me as I took off my coat and walked away. It was cold and I had no idea of when it had gotten so cold. Autumn had come before I even notice it. The summer was over. Seasons and people change. Seasons and people move on.
Summer romance is a whirlwind that passes just as fast as it comes. On a hot summer day on the way to buy a jug of milk I met a boy outside the supermarket. He became my first boyfriend and he was perfect. He put up with me when I was angry. He gave me hugs when I was sad. He kissed my face when I felt lonely. That summer I was blind to anyone and everyone outside of what was us. Those who vied for my attention no longer existed. Everyday people on the street ceased to be seen. My world was him and he was my world and that is exactly what made it so devastating when my world exploded and everything that I ever had and ever loved was viciously ripped away from me. In the blink of an eye. Never to be seen again.
Halfway through the summer I told him I loved him. “I love you,” I said. “I’ll love you today, I’ll love you tomorrow, I’ll love you for as long as I possibly can.” That’s what I told him. I said it so I meant it. He touched my face with his hands, those hands that I loved so much, and told me sweet words. “I love you, too,” he said. “I love you today, I know I’ll love you tomorrow and I’ll love you until I don’t know how to anymore.” That’s what he said. With meaning and purpose and the illusion that that meant forever. I touched his face with my lips, the lips that gave out all my love, and repeated his words and he repeated my words until we were nothing but a circle. The cycle continued until our clothes were a pile on the floor and our essences took over all of our senses. Our world turned into heaven and earth over and over again, so many times that I found it impossible to keep count. Love, love and more love. In that moment it felt like neither of us knew anything else.
An entire lazy summer managed to pass with us wrapped into each other this way. Hands touching, noses bumping, lips caressing, pushing, pulling, holding. Shared ice cream and carnivals. Joy and laughter. Thoughts and promises. Everything we were rolled up into one summer that stretched on like a hazy day, one long beautiful day. But our day was drawing to a close, as the summer was ending and a new school year reared its ugly head. School supplies, binders, notebooks, textbooks. Everything getting in the way of our world and our summer day and tearing away at us. It was dreadful. We just weren’t ready for the invasion of new people upon our world. What we had was too fresh and too new for the inclusion of others and their prying eyes and judging mouths. He took me by the hand one day and pulled me with no words for minutes on end. “This will be our place,” he said. “Every day after school, I’ll come here and you’ll come here and we’ll be together again. Just us.” He was perfect enough to give me hope for the future. The future of us. The future that we would be able to face together.
The first week of classes was a haze and I was nothing but a zombie, going through the motions of life until 3 o’clock when classes were over and I was free to run back to him. And run I did. As fast as my feet were able to carry me. So fast that it almost felt like flying and I’m certain that once I got to him, I did. My feet would lift off the ground and catapult me into his arms and surround me with his scent. We could once again be our world and whatever happened throughout our day had never occurred. Whoever had been mean to us, whoever we had made friends with, they had never been met. They weren’t allowed in our world. “I love you,” we would say. And then we’d say it again with our eyes and our mouths and our hands. We said it and swore that we meant it.
Every day was like this for a while until… it’s wasn’t. On a Thursday after a particularly upsetting day - I had failed a math test - I wanted nothing more than to fly again into his arms and have him tell me with kisses that everything was going to be okay, but on that day he never did. I showed up, but he wasn’t there. I waited, and he never came. He wasn’t answering my phone calls. He wasn’t responding to my text messages. He just wasn’t there. And then I got worried. “He would never just leave me here, alone,” I said. “Something must have happened to him.” And then I got frantic, my imagination taking me places that I never needed to go. What if he was hurt? What if he got hit by a car on the way here? What if he was calling out to me and I couldn’t hear him and wasn’t there to help him?
I dropped everything I had and ran as fast as possible in the direction of his house. Anything to get to him. Anything to help him. Anything to be there. But I was stopped. Whatever I was seeing had to have been unreal. I had to have been dreaming. Maybe I was the one who had fallen down and hit my head because what I was seeing made no realistic sense. He was at the bus stop a few blocks from his house and he was with another girl. Telling her my sweet words. Touching her with the perfect hands that used to be mine. Kissing her with the lips that used to kiss me. All of the love built over the summer, given away to some girl with a slightly crooked smile, too much make up, and hair the color of night. And it hurt. It hurt more than words were accurately able to describe. My sob is what alerted him to my presence, too wrapped up in the female next to him to take notice of me any sooner. The look on his face as he noticed me is what hurt the most. Resignation. This is the way it has to be. This is what it is.
“It’s just too hard,” he told me. Three days of silence later. Three days of waiting and hoping that what I saw was somehow a mistake. Three days of leaving our spot alone after having waited under a tree. Three days of pillows wet from tears and a throat raspy from disuse. “It’s just too hard for us to be together. She goes to my school and she’s able to be there for me when you aren’t. Do you understand?” A question I was unable to answer without showing my anger. “No,” I replied. “I don’t understand. I feel like everything you ever told me was a lie. You won’t love me forever and I will not ask you to.” This perfect man, my perfect man, like an image cracking in front of my eyes. Single-handedly destroying my world. I cried when I was finished talking, and I cried some more after he did nothing to soothe me. I did nothing but cry as he turned and walked away from me and I cried long into the hours after he was gone. It felt like forever until I ran out of tears.
Days after I had finally been able to get out of my bed without the weight of my heartache crushing down on me with each step, I saw them together. My love no-longer, and his love ever-more, together in what used to be ’our spot.’ And I waited patiently for the pain to come back and bring me to my knees. Cripple me until I could no longer move. Hurt me until I could no longer feel. And something came. A slight pang. An emptiness inside of me. And it hurt, but it did not hurt as much as I had expected it to. A ghost of what it once was, a sign that I would be able to be okay. I looked around at the trees and noted the red leaves that were falling around me. The brown grass beneath my feet that crunched under the weight of my footsteps. The wind howled around me as I took off my coat and walked away. It was cold and I had no idea of when it had gotten so cold. Autumn had come before I even notice it. The summer was over. Seasons and people change. Seasons and people move on.
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