Seasons
By Nadia D., Statesboro, GA
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She is his summer and she loves him 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 58 seconds a day. She loves him constantly, except for those moments when she lies back on the grass and watches him dance as the sun goes down. Then she knows that she is only his summer and he is not her forever. She doesn’t love him then.
But then two heartbeats pass and he turns and smiles, and she loves him again. And for another day she can forget that he is just her present.
It’s a childish love, and she knows this. A love made of fierce blushes and tickle fights and kisses in the rain can’t possibly last past September, and she knows this too. She whispers words into his ear as they lie under the stars – words like tomorrow or sweet or hold me closer, not words like never or always or forever, because words like that last too long and permanency holds no place in summer.
He tells her that she’s like summer – sunlight and freedom and … he falters here. Temporary? she thinks but does not say it.
She is only his summer and knows she will fade come fall, but she remembers this only for two seconds a day.
***
“Fall’s coming,” he says one day midway through August, and dangles his legs because he’s uneasy.
She doesn’t reply, just closes her eyes and clings to him as the seasons spin around them.
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