june [ a short story ]

July of '99 was the summer i first saw you. we were at the park downtown, curls plastered to our heads in the suffocating haze of summer, harsh sunlight on sunburned skin and freckled noses. you fell off your skateboard trying to impress another girl. she didn't see you, but i did. that was the first time you saw me laugh. 

we both grew two inches that summer. you were a few inches shy of 6 feet; i was a few inches shy of you. my mother told me it was time i stopped acting so careless; like a child. yours ruffled your blond hair, streaked from the sun, and laughed when you told her, nodding with fondness as we stood back to back to prove it. (it didn't prove anything.) 

that summer unfolded in fragments; early mornings, grey eyes glinting in the rising sun, your face pressed up against my screened window, smelling like dirt and pine needles and wildflowers. walks in the rain, pressed against each other, your arm around my shoulder as we shivered, laughing, cursing the suddenness of the Eastern rainstorms. 

13 stitches over your left eyebrow, 19 running a jagged line from my elbow to my wrist, and a concussion for the unfortunate cyclist whom, due to rain, heavy fog and poor vision, was doomed to spend the next few days in a hospital bed. your mother arrived at the hospital ten minutes later, wrapped in an oversized flannel shirt. 

raindrops splattered her glasses. i could have sworn the shower had long since ended. 

our nights were spent under scattered skies, galaxies freckled with dying stars, dew soaking through our jeans and settling in our hair as we watched the hours unfold, planets and constellations writing our story before we knew how to read it. 

we both cried in front of each other for the first time the summer after that; me, when i saw your face in the crowd at the airport after 10 months apart, and your eyes swam (although you would later refute this) when you left, fingertips locked together for as long as possible.

"i'll see you next summer," you whispered, the sudden ferocity in your voice a testament to the truth you thought you were telling, "don't worry, alright? i'll be here." 

the months tarried, dragging sodden feet through autumn, winter, and spring, and, as summer swept in the door, i did see you again. it was June; the skies were unfolding, wildflowers blooming, stars tracing their way across the heavens to eternity with every passing night. 

when i glimpsed you on that cold, gray day, your eyes were as bright as they always were, head thrown back in a laugh, sunlight playing amongst the tendrils of hair that fell across your face. 

the day i saw you was the only day that entire summer that it rained. 

roses were scattered everywhere; on the ground, tucked in the lapels and jacket pockets of a dozen strangers, a gnarled, twisted rose bush planted by the pile of fresh dirt that marred the viridescent earth. 

on a gilded stand in the middle of the haphazard circle, surrounded by a bed of even more red roses, water droplets glinted on the black and white photo of you - laughing; joyful; so vibrantly, vivaciously alive. 

and in that moment, i remembered how much you hated roses. 

"he was on his way to the airport," your mother whispered to me, grey eyes - so much like yours - swimming, dripping, like the sky. "he couldn't wait to see you." there was grief - raw, sharp, heavy - in her eyes, but i saw the same disbelief there that i felt. because this doesn't happen in real life, does it? this is the tragedy that fiction weaves together; this is not the story the stars had written for us. 

i grew two more inches that summer; you grew twenty. or, at least, your rosebush did. you hated roses, it's true. "give me wildflowers over roses any day," you grinned at me, a sprig of meadow grass between your teeth. but then, everything about you was a contradiction. is it strange that i think of you every time i see something you hated? 

it's not any stranger, i suppose than thinking of and loving you even more now than i did before. as i said, you were a conundrum; an oxymoron. a riddle to solve; a puzzle to piece together. and loving you (or a memory of you) after all this time - who you were and are and always will be - is something you would do. 

it was raining today, and i saw your mother in the grocery store. (she moved here a few years back, a small U-Haul trailer, the rusty red car you used to drive and a box of dusty photographs in tow.) she smiled when she saw me, and stroked my hair, her arms warm and inviting as she pulled me into a hug. she's thinner than she used to be; there are more edges to her frame, fewer curves, but she still smells the same. like you. like pine needles. like the earth after rain.

"i still love him, you know," i whispered when she finally pulled away, reluctance written across her features. "i always will." 

she didn't answer. but before she left, she looked back at me one last time and smiled.

raindrops splattered her glasses. i could have sworn the shower had long since ended. 

END

(this post was written, prepped, and forgotten over two years ago. i've neglected this little corner over the past few years, but i have much to share and have decided to start posting again. every now and then. no promises on the consistency of those posts, however. ;)) xx