Long Days of Free

Chapter 2

The sound of clinking cups and spoons make way into my early morning dreams. My eyes flit open. I can hear Mom's shoes hit the wood floor. The breeze is blowing through the open window, and circulating around the loft. I lie in bed, in my old calico sheets. Home. Happy. Summer.

Soon, Mom leaves. I can hear the door softly shut and the sound of the car crushing the gravel. I rise out of bed and go to the set of drawers that I put my clothes in. A sundress. That's all I need. That's the joy of summer. I slip on the dress and my pair of brown moccasins that are molded the the shape of my foot. I quickly braid my hair to the side, with pieces of hair sticking out of it all over. 

I grab my little brown leather bag, which holds a slim fiction novel and a few pennies. I descend down the stairs and go to the kitchen, where mom left a note and a bag with an almond croissant covered in powdered sugar. For me. I take the paper bag and go outside, to the grass and wildflower median that separates the house from the beginning of the beach. I pick a spot, then lie down in the middle of the flowers, croissant in hand. 

Finally. This is what summer is. Hours and hours of nothing but lazy pleasure. I bite into the croissant as an avalanche of sugar and almond crumbs comes down and lands on my dress. I take my book out and begin reading. It's some stupid love story set in cliche Paris. Normally I would never read this, but that is what summer is for. For adventures. Trying something else. 

***

Later, in the afternoon, the clouds cover the sun. I take the bike out of the shed, and head up the gravel road towards town.  It's been so long since I was last on a bike, but I fly down the road as if I've been practicing. Around the bend, around the pothole, around the rock. Flying.

I can see the harbor up ahead. A seagull flies over my head. I lean the bicycle up against a fence railing, and go to the pier. I slip my feet out of my moccasins and sit on the edge of the dry wood pier, so that my feet hang down. 

I tilt my head back and breathe in the summer sea breeze. Inhale the beautiful feelings of sheer nothingness, exhale the thoughts of Boston and Dad. In comes good, out comes bad. But one thought does make its way into my thoughts. It's a memory.

We were on a pier much like this. It was supposed to be a vacation. But Mom and Dad were fighting. It was the day that Dad left in our rental car, back to Maine, to file for divorce. Mom stayed there, numb. I always blamed it on Dad. And that's how its been for me ever since. Dad's fault. But what had he done? He remarried, and he's starting over again. He never loved me and Mom as much as he loves Samantha. And that's how it is. That's why I need a break. 

I cringe as I think back to all that my parents have done to each other, to me. I'm just stuck in the middle of it, each hand being held by a different parent, being tugged each way like a stuffed bunny I used to own. I cringe at the thought of Samantha and Dad.  Of Samantha stealing our last name from my mother. 

What am I doing? I have had only one day of summer, and I am already thinking about things I never want to think about again. Summer, is a time to escape. I am not escaping as of yet.

***

I ride back to the house. This time I take a shortcut through the trees, past another little house that is surround entirely by forest. The ground is uneven, so I walk my bike. There are two boys standing in the back of the neighbor house, probably my age. They're yelling at each other, but I can tell it's only jokingly, unlike the yelling in my life. I catch myself staring at the  boys.

"Hey! Hey you! Tell Alex he is completely and totally wrong!" one boy shouts at me.

"Um, me?" I say, startled that he is talking to me.

"Yes! Tell him!" the boy yells. I walk my bike up closer to them. They're both quite tall, taller than me, and were wearing boat shoes. These were the first things I noticed, and these things somehow made them more approachable. 

"Um, well, I don't really know what he's wrong about, so I can't answer that," I say.

"Of course. We're building a coffee table," he points to what is the start of a construction project on the little lawn. "And Alex somehow thinks that the table only needs to come to about here." He puts his hand at the middle of his calf. 

"And he thinks that it should be at least knee height, which is so stupid! I've never seen a knee height coffee table!"

"You're arguing over that?" I begin, smiling, "I mean, guess it depends. It could be either way really. So both of you are right."

"Ah, I see. Gotta be the mediator," the slightly taller and lighter haired boy says, chuckling. "I'm Ben," He says, with a smile. He is standing pretty close. I take a step back.

"And I'm Alex," the darker haired one says.

"Jasmine," I say.

"Jasmine," Ben says. "Like the tea?"

"Yeah, kinda." I say.

"Hey Ben! Jasmine's tall," Alex says with a grin. This to me is usually insulting, but not with him, somehow.  "Ben has a thing for tall girls," he says to me. I blush.

"And Alex's got a thing for making girls feel uncomfortable. And this is why he's never had a girlfriend," Ben jokes, and lightly punches Alex on the arm.

"Forever alone," Alex says, laughing and punching Ben harder. 

"You live around here?" Ben continues the small talk.

"Yes, well, just for the summer. I live at the cottage just down there." I point.

"The Wildflower House?" Alex asks.

"Yeah," I say.

"Well maybe we'll see you around more this summer," Ben says.

"Yeah, that'd be cool," I say. It sounds so unlike the awkward quiet girl I am used to.

The boys go back to their project and I continue down to the house. Satisfied with the new friends I have made. I guess that's what you'd call them. I don't know why these boys were so easy to talk to. At school, I would have quietly ended the smalltalk as fast as possible, so quiet that it was possible that they didn't hear, and when they did it was often the wrong thing. Maybe it was the fact that they were the instigators of the conversation, and all I had to do was follow along with the conversation. I am not used to that.

Maybe I would see them again.