Memorycemetery

As we lay in the grass, staring at the clouds in shapes of whatever our imaginations ould create, I felt like I could take on the world. She had that affect on me. She made me feel strong. Like I had a purpose.

She rolls onto her side, resting her head on her hands. She smiles at me, her blonde hair blowing lightly in the wind. I turn my head resting on my hand to face her, my dark hair blowing in my face. She slides closer to me, and we slowly lean towards each other, our lips colliding in an explosion of passion.

I met this girl two weeks ago, and I’m in love with her already, although I know that in a few days, when the summer ends, I know I’ll probably never see her again.

We met by chance two weeks earlier. It was my first day working on my grandparents farm. My eyes were drawn to her as she stocked peanuts on the top shelf at the local market, her shirt raising to expose the skin on her waist. I caught a jar she knocked off the shelf, inches above the floor.

“Thanks,” she smiled at me.

I started going to that store daily, for whatever reasons I could think of, just so I could see her. About a week later I found myself taking her for dinner after the store had closed one night. I started spending nights at her family’s farm, talking in the hayloft, climbing in the corn crib, or whatever else we felt like doing.

Before I knew it, I was here- lying in a field watching the sky, kissing a beautiful girl that I’d fallen in love for in two weeks.

The next day we found ourselves laying in the warm sand at sunset on the beach at the lake. I can’t keep my eyes off of her exposed skin. She rests her head on my chest. I wrap my arms around her, feeling the silkiness of the skin on her exposed back and stomach.

If I died right now, with her in my arms, I could die happy.

The sun went down and we retreated back to the hayloft in her barn. I slip on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and she puts on a pair of jeans and a black tank-top, both of which become slightly damp as they sit over her bathing suit.

We sit on top of a hay bail, our hands folded on top of each others. We talk all night- of our pasts, our families- whatever we felt like.

A look of surprise runs across her face.

“I’ll be right back,” she says as she climbs down the old wooden ladder to the dirt floor below. She disappears, then returns a minute later with a digital camera.

She sits down net to me and puts her arm around me, pulling me closer. I do the same. She holds the camera out, pointing at us.

“Smile,” she says as the flash erupts around us. She takes several more of us making strange faces, the last one being the two of us kissing.

I come back to her house later that night wearing a black sport coat and tie, with leather shoes. She comes down the stairs wearing an ankle-length black dress that is split up the left leg, her golden hair pulled back, away from her face.

“Ready to go?” She asks.

I tell her I am and drape my jacket over her shoulders. I grab her hand and lead her to my car. I open the door and sit her down, then walk to the other side and open my door. A loud pop echoes back to me against the building as I open it, like usual. My car isn’t much, but it gets me around.

I sit down in my car, noticing that it is the cleanest I have ever had it. I try to hide my pride in the cleaning job I had done. The electric seat belts click back into position as I turn it on. The engine is so loud that it is almost embarrassing, but I can’t do anything about it. I put it in gear and leave her driveway.

A few minutes later we pull up to the nicest restaurant in town. I still couldn’t believe that I had been able to get reservations.

After dinner we find ourselves back in her hayloft, talking about anything and everything as we had done the night before. Before we know it we are asleep in the loft, on a bed of hay, wrapped in each others arms, both of us still wearing our formal clothes from the previous night, my jacket serving as a blanket. Morning sunlight seeps through the cracks in the old wooden barn.

We wake up about 2:00 in the afternoon. I walk her back to her house and cook her lunch. I don’t want to leave her because I’m leaving town tomorrow, but I have to go back to the farm and do the usual chores.

I get back to her house shortly after dark to find her standing on her doorstep, illuminated by the faint glow of the porch light. I approach her and she throws herself, sobbing, into my arms.

“I don’t want you to go,” she sobs. “Please, just one more day. I love you.”

The words stop my heart as they roll off her lips. “I love you too,” I whisper in return.

We go inside and sit on her ed. Somehow the night evolves to us taking our clothes off and laying naked in bed together, sweating, thinking about how being each others first wouldn’t keep us together. I wouldn’t make the night last forever.

She looks at me, tears flowing from her eyes once again. I wipe them away. We kiss, our lips parting and our tongues entering each others mouths. I wrap my arm around her and pull her close to me, her naked body pressed flat against mine.

I wake around six in the morning to find her sitting on the end of the bed, wrapped in a sheet, still naked. We shower together and dress. We spend the rest of the day together, trying to do whatever we can to make the day lost longer.

But it didn’t last forever.

“No, no, no,” she sobs as she kisses me.

“I’m sorry, I have to,” I say, my throat growing coarse as I feel myself start to cry.

She grips my arm as I open my car door. I wrap my arms around her and hold her for a few more minutes. We kiss, and before I know it I’m watching her shrink in my mirror, tears blurring my vision.

I pull into a hotel parking lot. As I carry my bags to my room, a note falls out on the stairs. I open the envelope to find two of the pictures he had taken- the first one with us sitting happy next to each other, her blonde hair contrasting my dark hair, her large brown eyes matching mine.

I feel tears stinging my eyes again as I look at the second picture- the one of us with our lips locked in a passionate, if not somewhat staged kiss. On the back was a note- “I wish the best summer of my life had lasted longer. I love you.”

We called each other frequently until winter. We talked and made plans of when we would see each other again, but of course that’s all they were- talk.

I haven’t been able to go back to visit her yet, but I still see her every day in the framed pictures on my desk.

Traverse

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