Saturn County

Eight | Seasons

June 17th

"you're all gonna watch me disappear into the sun"

Each year there are months we forget. Not the events necessarily, though these are the days that tend to get lost between the seasons, but the temperatures and the sun evade us each time they come around. March is still winter and June is no longer spring. June is hot, this year more than ever.

The difference from the top and bottom floors of the mall was greater than it should have been considering the lack of walls between the two. Heat rises, simple enough. Sebastian wondered how hot it was, both inside the mall and out. Could a thermometer measure its surrounding temperatures? He wasn't sure. There'd never been a time where he needed to check the temperature and couldn't just check his or his parents' phone. Not that that mattered anyways; they didn't think to grab a thermometer when they left their house.

He swore that next year he would remember June. Summer is longer than July and August, everyone ought to know that. He'll still be surprised next year. Two years from now he'll have stopped counting the months. It will simply be summer.

They'd moved downstairs the night before, but not quite by the others, not yet. They'd spent the day around their dusty public couches playing cards and making small talk, as though it was another day on a long vacation where the WiFi didn't work and maybe it was raining so they couldn't go outside. As though it was just another day. In some ways it was—Sebastian wasn't sure how long it would take for their new reality to feel normal. It had been months, but playing euchre on the floor of the Grove Shopping Mall with Marko Yang, Clara Green, and some random kid named Benji still felt like a poorly constructed mad-lib. But the cards must have been enough, because in the morning they moved their tents to the larger group, just the way Aria had envisioned.

"It's too damn hot." Sebastian was a boy born for the winter. It took nearly all his courage to push himself off the tile ground, his head spinning as he moved. "I'm gonna take a walk. Anyone want to come?" It was safer not to walk alone, though in this heat nobody would have the energy to hurt someone else anyways.

"Couldn't hurt," said Benji. Sebastian hardly knew him but could tell the boy was restless. All day he was shuffling the cards or taking laps around the mall or even unlacing his shoes just so he could lace them back together. "You guys know Nathan Maxwell?"

"The weed guy?"

"Yeah," He was already on his feet. "He's an old buddy of mine, doesn't live too far from here. We could pay him a visit."

"Are you that's smart?" asked Aria, ever the pragmatist. She wasn't sending her brother out on a suicide mission. Of course, she probably should have thought a little harder when Emma ran off with Marko and Clara that morning. She knew Emma's inventory couldn't possibly be enough to keep her occupied, but she couldn't think of any other trouble she could be getting into. Emma wasn't brash. Emma wouldn't leave the mall. Besides, Clara was even more soft-spoken than her sister, and for better or worse she couldn't bring herself to distrust Marko.

"Nate knows everything about everyone." Aria's eyes snapped from scanning the mall for her sister back to Benji. "He's like Switzerland. Doesn't deal with any gang shit."

"I'd go too," said Lucas. Aria had nearly forgotten he was there. He was as quiet as his sister, though not nearly as timid. This made it better. She didn't know Benji well enough to be anything but distrustful, but Lucas was an ally. Friend was too strong of a word, but he was stable.

"I'll walk out with you guys," said Daisy, already jingling her keys. She carried the key to her bike, her old house, and a janky souvenir compass her uncle had bought her the first and only time she'd ever visited Vermont. Aria couldn't fathom why she'd kept it all this time, but she figured that it was hers and that was reason enough. "Ought to try my luck again at Hank's." He noticed how she avoided saying the desired resource out loud: water. As though the others may not have known what Hank Coldwater dealt in.