One Last Summer

Just one more minute. One more day. One more year. That is all I want.

The caps are in the air, colliding against one another just as hard as the bodies in the stands. Parents cry in the audience for what seem like hours, highschool diplomas are gripped in shaking hands, arms are wrapped around people that they have never been wrapped around before; not once in the past four years. But the caps have not yet hit the ground. 

I watch them twist and glide downwards, fighting against gravity for a little more time. How long before they are forced back down to Earth? How long can they stay afloat, after being thrown up into the air and out into the world before they are again slammed into the chaos, drowned out by the opportunity and potential that is pulsing through the crowd below? 

My arms are wrapped around Riley, someone they have been wrapped around hundreds if not thousands of times before. How many times will I hug her before summer is ripped away and buried beneath the fallen leaves of autumn? Before California offers her a hand and she takes it with confidence, and I stay here in Chicago, for another four cold years? I have no definite answer, and the only thing I am confident in is that it won’t be enough.

After our arms have unraveled and our bodies have separated, I stack up the files of my life and pack them away into the boxes of my brain. Amongst the tarnished labels are “soccer,” “work,” and “college,” along with other things I am not yet ready to think about. I lock them up and stow them away in the deepest compartments of my mind until further notice, promising myself that the only thing worthy of my thoughts would be making this summer the best one yet. For both me and Riley. 

As I think it she says it, and we lock in the promise with the entanglement for our pinky fingers; insurance that the vow made will be one kept. We notice for the first time that our caps have hit the ground and just like that, it is real. High School is over. As I bend down, the highs and the lows and the wins and the losses and the laughs and the cries of the past four years are bouncing off the walls of my skull, fighting for the attention of my memory. 

I think of my three perfect exam grades and the silence of Riley’s grandma’s funeral, the win for the debate team I couldn’t care less about and the loss of the state cup that may have permanently broken a piece of my heart, the fantastic prom after party at Logan’s and the Halloween party at Chloe’s where I was dumped for the first time. I wonder how these thoughts escaped their boxes so quickly before picking up my cap. After a brief examination, I found that the impact of the fall had only slightly dirtied the tassel. I place it carefully back on my head and walk, hand in hand with Riley.

We walk away from highschool, childhood, and life as we know it. We walk towards summer, the stands our parents continue to cry in, and our futures. It seems as if we will never stop walking.

I’m sitting on her bedroom floor with my head on her shoulder, staring at the boxes that surround us like a wall, protecting us from everything of which we don’t yet know we need to be afraid. We had kept our promise to one another and we both knew it. It didn’t feel like enough.

From our families going to Mexico together, to waterskiing, to beach days, to parties, to pool days, to pool parties, to late nights and early mornings and all the time in between, I don’t think we could have spent another minute together. It wasn’t enough. 

I can tell she’s crying although I can’t see her face. We have spent the past week helping each other pack for college without ever talking about what we were packing for, and what it would mean when we were finished packing up our rooms and had to start packing up our cars. 

It doesn’t feel real. I don’t know anything about the world. I don’t even know myself. I feel her shift underneath my weight and I sit up, taking her hands as I face her. 

“We’ll talk everyday right? No exceptions?” I ask.   

“No exceptions. And I’ll come visit you over a long weekend or something.” 

“Yeah, exactly. And the holidays will be here before we know it, and we’ll see each other and hang out everyday until it’s time for you to fly back to California. Right?” 

“Right.”

“You still gonna be my best friend when I get back?” I whisper. 

“Of course I will,” she pauses. “You know I will.” 

Our pinky fingers don’t move. 

We resume our original position until the sky has lost its color and the clouds have blocked out the moon. We both know that neither of us will have time to talk everyday, the pay from our summer gigs won’t cover airfare, and like every other year, Riley’s family will spend the holidays visiting relatives in the Czech Republic. We both know neither of us has the courage to admit that.

When we wake up the next morning, still sitting on the floor surrounded by boxes, we are stuck in a hug. We are silently aware that regarding the foreseeable future, it will be our last. No amount of wanting can change that. Out of minutes. Out of days. Out of years. Time’s up.