The summer came to an end gracefully, like a dancer twirling from the stage, her skirts still fluttering from one last pirouette.
Already, fall had the wide roads of the suburbs we shared hard with frost, the trees shedding golden leaves. It became a season for scarves and hands in pockets, warm socks and lace-up boots.
My blue bikini stayed in the chest of drawers, pushed to the back so I wouldn't have to look at it. I'd unpacked mournfully when I got home, giving my mom one-word answers when she asked after the trip.
Maybe you'll think I'm after pity when I say this, but I swear I'm not - I know it's pathetic - but, as soon as I was up the stairs, I dragged my bag into the bedroom I'd missed, shut the door carefully behind me, my back to it, and sank down like a thing deflated.
I cried a lot that afternoon; I think all that refusing to accept the truth (that you wouldn't call, would you, that you weren't mine after all?) on the drive back had caught up with me. I bawled like a child, my face red, eyes swollen, hair stuck to my cheeks.
My nose ran, and I tasted the salt of my tears on my lips, (which only made me sob harder, remembering the smell of sea spray, and the ocean on your tongue...) stinging as they fell.
I went to sleep that way, curled up on the floor by by bedroom door as if I was guarding it, as if there was something secret here, something sacred, my bed safe a haven that I refused to sully with my shame and my sorrow.
At some point my mother must have come in and moved me, because I remember faintly the sound of footsteps, the embrace of arms around me, the hush of whispered words. Her hand stroked across my forehead like I was a feverish toddler, but as I drifted off once more, I relished the comfort and the safety of her touch, the harbour of her voice. Perhaps I never should have driven off to California's coast with a boy I loved too much, and who loved me not at all.
Regardless - I dreamed of you and all the words you never said, the promises, promises.
They were never mine.
YOU ARE READING
august
Fanfikce"august sipped away like a bottle of wine/cause you were never mine..." *** this is just a little writing exercise i'm doing for a bit of a break from longer projects! for this reason it's a bit messy, just for fun :) this is a short story based on...
