Speaking of marvels

Chapter 1

South Orange is the very last place that Harry wants to be spending his summer and yet, coincidentally, he's experienced precisely twenty-one in the very same location. The thought alone is evocative of countless trips to Coney Island, eating greasy diner food with his friends, and nights spent sneaking in and out of his bedroom window.

His entire past is encompassed within 3 square miles and there aren't many places he can go that don't already have a memory attached. It should be comforting and, in some ways, it is -- he'll always be rooted there and it feels like nestling himself in a worn, childhood blanket when he arrives, but stagnancy is one of his greatest fears and the idea of an entire lifetime in one place feels stifling.

He doesn't hate New Jersey or his hometown or the people in it -- far from, but having been away at college in Santa Barbara for three years already, he thought that maybe once, once he might actually get to reap the benefits of summertime in California. He'd had big dreams of escaping the familiar eastern humidity and wasting time at the artisan market at La Cumbre Plaza, maybe even passing a discreet bottle of wine back and forth with his friends while combing the beach at Channel Islands.

The idea sounds decadent in his head even still, 2,865 miles away from it all.

But his mom envisioned something different for him, and in the interest of saving money, he agreed to live at home for his last summer as an undergrad. The deal isn't so bad. He's given free reign over the pool house and the vintage Jag his stepdad has been restoring for years, and he knows it's important to his mom that he stay with her for at least his last summer as an undergrad, because she has no say in where he ends up after he graduates.

Waking up on the lumpy mattress in the pool house, Harry reminds himself of that. It's just one more summer of what he's already so used to and by the next he'll be spending it however he pleases. The world is his, really, even if it might be a feat to put his English degree to good use, and he doesn't even want to think about concepts like starting his career and settling down that make him feel older than he is. There are still opportunities -- maybe he'll spend some time traveling or find an apartment in New York. Nothing needs to be set in stone. He can just take it all as it comes and not be so hyper-concerned about plans like everyone else in his life seems to be. He doesn't always want to know what's going to happen before it happens.

It's like a mantra that he repeats while tugging on jogging shorts and an old cross country t-shirt -- this might be your last summer here, it'll never be like this again, at least try and enjoy it.

He draws up the blinds and tries to gauge how much he's over-slept in by the position of the sun in the sky. It's early Summer, the first day of June, and that familiar humidity hasn't quite set in yet. Outside, everything is fresh-smelling and the sun is still too low to do anything other than cast pretty, leafy shadows on the patio.

Harry ties his shoes on the step outside of the pool house and looks around. The landscape is inherently familiar but so different from what he sees everyday in California, and even the thought makes him dimly aware of how annoying it probably is for him to constantly make that comparison. He's been home for thirty six hours and he knows from experience those intrusive thoughts have another few weeks before they stop being instinctual.

The grass around the pool stretches up to the back deck of his house, and a glance to his left shows a few houses, not even separated by fences, just expanses of yards with playgrounds and grills, decks, pool noodles neglected and pressed up against the sides of garages.

It's early, still quiet. Harry stands up and stretches his arms overhead, fixes the headband he's wearing to push his hair back from his forehead, and just goes.