The Almost Summer

Chapter 1: The summer that almost was♥

The minute hand shuffles slowly towards my imminent freedom. Miss Anderson drones on in the background. She’s all “blah blah maths” but frankly I couldn’t care less, because what sadist schedules maths last lesson on a Friday?

I cast my eyes over to where my friend Piper sits, hoping for a supportive eye roll, but she’s busy playing on her phone under the desk. She thinks she’s being sneaky about it by arranging her book and pencil case just so, but she’s wearing this intense look of complete concentration. I see her scowl as she dies, and then glance up to see me giving her my best “I’m on to you,” look. Piper just winks and slips her phone back into her blazer pocket.

I resume staring at the clock. On my right Matty is tapping out an irritating rhythm that will one day get him punched, probably by me. Fighting the urge to hit him, I look back over at the whiteboard and feign concentration, but the numbers are hurting my brain. Once again I stare at the clock.

The minute hand mocks me. It is practically limping towards 3:15, when I will finally be free from what most people liberally call an 'education' for six whole weeks.

At ten past three everyone starts slowly packing away their stuff, zipping up pencil cases and closing textbooks. Miss Anderson pretends not to notice, because it’s the last Friday of term and she’s as bored as we are. After a few more minutes of Matty’s dubious drumming skills and staring at the clock, the bell finally sounds.

Within seconds it’s just me, Matty, and Piper left in the room. If I look closely, I'm roughly ninety-nine point nine percent sure I can see cartoon dust clouds rising from the places the other students have vacated.

“That was torture,” Piper groans. I give her a look, to which she rolls her eyes and amends: "Or maybe what I mean is that at this point I would probably prefer torture."

“I think knives are less painful. At least you thought to bring your phone. I had to put up with maths and Matty’s constant tapping!” I say, side-eyeing the boy in question.

“Golden Rule of drumming: practise on every available surface.” Matty grins, shaking out his overlong hair as we push through the classroom doors and into the hall. I continue to side-eye him until he sheepishly turns away. "Or maybe I can downgrade that to my silver rule. New Golden Rule: always put the burdgeoning of your decade-spanning drumming career behind irritating your mildly violent female friends."

“Friends is cutting it a bit fine,” Piper grins, at the same time I exclaim: "Violent?"

"Mildly violent."

I slap him on the shoulder, which hurts my hand more than I'd like to admit.

"You see what I'm talking about?" He directs this at Piper, rubbing his shoulder whilst shooting me a grudging look.

“I think I'm siding with Autumn on this one. You deserved it; on the one hand for your insensitivity, and the other for your poor drumming skills."

"Now who's being insensitive," He huffs, as we descend the staircase to the main entrance. "I have no clue why I ever expected any support off of you two."

“We support you!" I protest. "What's that quote about the friends being like bras again?" This is inconveniantly timed with the passing of my french teacher, who throws me a quizzical look over her shoulder.

"Close to your heart and there for support," Piper reels off, struggling to keep up with us as the crowds become more pressing.

"Exactly. We're like bras to you, Matty," I say, earning strange looks from what appears to be every student in hearing range. "We listen to your sucky band all the time."

"I don't think it counts if your twin brother is part of said band," Matty grins. "Hey, speak of the devil."

It's at this point that Charlie rams into us, throwing an arm around my shoulder.

"Didn't see you there, little sis,"

"You know, when I was your age, I was stuck in a terrible maths class wondering exactly how Matty came to be your sucky band's drummer." I frown up at him in all his gap-toothed, freckled glory.

"Oh, Autumn." Charlie clutches a hand to his heart. "For how long will you hold those seven minutes against me?"

"For as long as it takes for you to get over your infuriating new height," I narrow my eyes at him as we're carried along by the crowd out the main doors and onto the yard. Everywhere around us people are breaking off: singing and shouting their goodbyes, linking arms as they leave the school grounds.

Ready to finally start their summers. And suddenly I’m thinking a million things.

You see, when my mum named me Autumn, she named me after her favourite season. But Autumn has always been my least favourite time of year. When other people see warm colours and beautiful leaves decorating the pavements, I see freezing mornings and dead trees. I like spring and winter just fine, but summer has always been my favourite season.

Maybe it’s the smell of suncream, and long lazy days in the hot afternoon sun. Or maybe it’s the freedom and luxury of having days to yourself. More likely it’s the countless Sarah Dessen, Cathy Cassidy or Jenny Han novels I’ve read: the ones which promise love and adventure neatly contained within the endless summer haze. I’ve always been a little obsessed with perfection, and it's been a long time since I stopped distinguishing between wishing and yearning for that perfect summer.

But my summers have always been the same. Same people, same places, same jobs, same boys. Maybe it’s time to give up on my idea of the “perfect summer”.

“Uh oh. Autumn's got that face again.” Piper laughs, appearing out of nowhere in front of us.

"What face?" Charlie asks, studying me.

"The: I'm dreaming of a perfect summer face," She teases, and I flush slightly.

“That's just my face….” I mumble, as Lucas forces his way out of the crowd to join us.

“Need some help?” I ask him, watching as he grapples with three bags and a guitar case. He smiles shyly at me - although really, 'shyly' is pretty much the choice word when it comes to describing Lucas. Lucas completes Charlie and Matty's dorky trio: my next door neighbour and the long suffering voice of reason to their stupider ideas.

"I'll manage," He smiles, as Matty finishes a complicated looking handshake behind him with a boy from our year before turning round to join our little circle.

"What'd I miss?" He asks.

"Autumn's Napoleon complex," Charlie grins, and I shove him. I catch Matty mouthing the word 'violent' at me out of the corner of my eye, but I just ignore him, turning to Lucas to ask him why he needs so much stuff anyway.

“End of year clear out. I don’t think I should be allowed a locker – it just becomes a dumping ground. You know, I think I've got one of your chemistry textbooks in here..." He begins rooting through one of the bags, procuring a purple textbook from one of them with a triumphant grin on his face.

"No way, I've been looking for this for ages," I say, taking it off of him and working to shove it in my bag, as we spot Halle walking towards us in the distance. Although, to be fair, it's not hard to spot Halle. Her fluro-green tipped hair is a subtle giveaway.

Matty shuffles aside to make room for her, but she breezes past him and slots in between me and Charlie. I try not to notice Matty's red cheeks and flustered expression, but as soon as I make eye contact with Piper I can barely contain my grin. Poor, hopeless Matty, and poor, clueless, Halle.

“So what’s the plan?” Halle’s asking, and there's a pause. I let out a small sigh: yes, it's finally summer, but that doesn't mean anything has changed. My life is still my life: boring, predictable, mine.

“Cafe, I guess?" Charlie shrugs, and we all nod because I guess there's nothing better to do.

I wonder what would’ve happened if we hadn’t gone to the café. If instead we'd gone to see a film, or even done nothing at all. If it had, I probably would’ve had exactly the same summer I always did. Nothing extraordinary, just average. But we did go to the café, and so my whole summer changed.