Fragments of a Dream

Under The Elder Oak

Her eyes were oddly calming and bright, their golden gleam made Kristen think of fireflies. They always made her think of fireflies, and summer breezes and melted ice cream. Cecelia O'Hanlon always made her think of summer. The way she smelled of candies and campfires. The way her beautiful curls were the exact color of perfectly roasted marshmallows. How her skin had a glow like that of the moonlit summer nights. The way her voice made her think of entire days spent on the beach in peace. Cecelia was the embodiment of summer. A human caricature of the best of summer.

The fact that she was standing here in front of an oak tree in the dark, away from the party and thumping music that she could barely resist, really was something Kristen would've smiled at, some other day. Today she was just sad, and she just wanted to cry. Even looking at the girl, bathed in moonlight like she always seemed to be just made her want to cry. All it did was jog her memory back to the moss curtains, to the boy kissing her behind the moss curtains. It all was quite traumatic, in the 'I'm a teenager and my world depends on this girl liking me back' kind of way. She wasn't proud of her reaction, but it hadn't actually been all that intentional.

Every year since she was six, her summers were set in Ireland with her grandparents. She often wished it was rural Ireland with their great mysterious folklore and fairy rings, but it was in the heart of the city, and the only trees she got to see were the properly trimmed ones in her backyard. As it happened, she wasn't the only kid that returned for the two months the world celebrated heat and swimming pools. There was actually a fair amount of kids in her block and Kristen had friends without much trouble or search. It was always fun. Climbing on top monkey bars and declaring their kingdoms at eight. Talking, running and fighting at ten. Blowing off pocket money at the mall and talking about heartbreak like they knew what it meant at twelve. She'd grown up in Dublin as much as she'd grown up in South Carolina.

She was fifteen when she first saw Cecelia. They were biking around the park as everyone had had 'be healthier' on their summer bucket lists. She was casually sitting the park, picking the small white flowers for a crown. She had looked ethereal in the moment. Kristen had never believed in love at first sight, she quite the heart breaker really. It was nothing she did on purpose, she just fell in love very easily and people always seemed to reciprocate. It never worked out; it was never serious. But when Cecelia smiled at their passing bikes, she would've broken all her rules to have her. Kristen had waved and consecutively planted her face in the cobble stoned ground by falling. That had been their beginning.

It had been two years of flirting and talking ever since Cecelia had helped her then. That summer and both after then, were summers where Kristen told herself she didn't care, and summers when she totally did. It had been near torture, the tension between them. This party, their annual summer party, something Kristen did with her summer friends every year since they were ten, seemed like the perfect time to ask her. They still had more than half the summer if she said yes, and she could drown her misery in cheap beer if she said no. It had already been going better then expected when Cecelia had asked Kristen to meet her by the Elder Oak after sun down. She had taken that as a sign that Cecelia would only be kissing her goodnight this time. She was clearly proven wrong when she accidentally tripped into a shadowed corner. Her reaction had been as dramatic as she was often known to be. Shocked expression, clattering glasses, running. It was all very over the top, like her expectations.

Now she stared at her friend of two years with tears in her eyes and dirt in her finger nails, blue cotton piling all around her on the ground. She didn't care about the lace embroidery on the blue fabric that was being ruined the longer she sat there; she cared about her heart which was already broken. God, and it was only eight in the evening? How cruel could fate be?

Cecelia made her wordless way over to the giant oak under which now Kristen wanted to make her home. Even with no light, rocks, grass and insects, her high heels were as graceful as on a carpeted floor, as she found a way to sit beside Kristen. She looked so at ease there, so comfortable and calm, Kristen wasn't sure any human could pull that off. Cecelia wasn't any human though, she was magnificent, and gorgeous, and kind, and funny, and just Cecelia. She seemed to pull off everything except homework. She struggled with that, often questioning the use of studying math and science, they didn't really help with anything. Students said it for fun but Cecelia always seemed to mean her questions and proclamations about their important subjects.