A Nearly Cloudless Sky

Her fingers resisted being pulled apart, her skin sticky like sap. Tangy citrus juice trickled down her finger, which clutched what was left of a melting orange popsicle. 

It was one of those summer days that looked beautiful from the other side of a window, but as soon as you stepped outside, a thousand droplets of sweat pricked at your pores and you ached for air conditioning and an ice-cold shower. It was still one of those days that looked beautiful; so beautiful that you couldn’t help but sit outside on the curb with a tangy orange popsicle watching a cloud float by in a nearly cloudless sky. 

So there she sat, her popsicle sliding off its stick and sweat sliding down her back. She felt a familiar pang in her heart, that no matter how many times she felt it, she would not be able to shake its pain. She watched a single cloud float companionless in an endless sky and felt heartbreakingly alone. 

Ever since school had shut down a few months earlier she had been feeling heartbreakingly alone. 

It started as a rumor, just something for the kids to run their mouths about. A harmless he said she said sort of thing. A childish, did you hear about the virus? sort of thing. Nothing more. Or so they had thought. 

Then cases surged, businesses shut down, and a national stay-in-place order was enforced. The virus ripped through the country like a wildfire, burning anyone and everyone it touched. Before long, her home had become a war zone, and her school, a distant memory. 

When school was still in session, she had had a falling out with her friends. Well, it wasn’t quite a falling out. She had slowly drifted away, distancing herself from the only friends she had ever known. It was like she was on a lifeboat near an island that could have provided her food and shelter and instead she let herself float away from the island and then started paddling in the other direction. You're not even making an effort to hang out with us, they had said. Do you even care about us anymore? 

But she still had Nicole, the last rope tethering her to the island of safety. Why do you still bother with her? The others would ask Nicole. When has she ever been there for you? They poked and pried until Nicole, too, had released the rope and let the currents whisk the lifeboat away. I care for you, Allison, but I’m loyal to the group, Nicole would have said. But Allison hadn’t even bothered to ask why her last friend had let her drift away. It was true. Allison had never shown she cared for any of them. She hadn’t even cared enough to ask. 

But now, watching the solitary cloud float along until it was obstructed from view by the horizon of evergreens, she wished more than anything that she still had that rope to tether her to the island of safety. She wished more than anything that she wasn’t a solitary cloud floating alone in a nearly cloudless sky. 

Allison lowered her gaze to her sticky-like-sap hands and rose from the curb to go wash up. Before she could, however, she was met with another pang in her chest. Unlike the previous pang, this was not a wave of loneliness but a wave of butterflies for a boy was running by. Not just any boy. Nate. The boy next-door with the dark, floppy hair and perfect teeth and soulful blue, blue eyes. 

She met his blue, blue eyes and he met hers and they exchanged a head nod. It was a neighborly gesture in itself but it made the butterflies in her stomach do somersault. She stole one last look in his direction just as his dark, floppy hair disappeared over the horizon of evergreens. 

He’s moving away to college next year, she reminded herself, but the butterflies wouldn’t dissipate. That is until she felt someone else’s eyes watching her. Then the butterflies fought their way up her esophagus and out of her parted lips when she spoke. 

“Hi, Todd.” 

It was the other boy next-door. Only this one was younger… and less attractive… and a bit of a stalker. He was always outside mowing the lawn or setting up sprinklers but it felt to Allison that he was just always watching her. 

She flashed a fake smile in his direction and then continued to her house to wash her hands. She went around the back path, tiptoeing over cracks in the concrete. Sometimes it felt like life was a concrete slab and this whole pandemic thing was just a crack in the path, one humanity had tried to avoid but failed. 

“Step on a crack, you’ll break your mother’s back,” said Todd’s voice from behind her. 

“Yeah,” she scrunched her nose. He was still watching her. She plastered on another fake smile. “Did you -uh- need something?”

“Yeah, I was wondering if your dad was home? I borrowed his sprinkler…” He gestured with his hands a lot as he spoke. 

“Oh, right. Well, he’s not,” she said. “Sorry.” She clenched her sticky fingers into a fist. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone? 

“Do you mind if I… wait with you?” He gestured to the porch chairs. 

She couldn’t exactly say no… “Guess not.” They both sat. 

The humid, windless air hung silently between them, only disturbed by the buzz of the flies swarming Allison’s popsicle stick. Happy for a distraction, she stood to throw out the stick. She was opening the sliding glass door with her elbow when she found herself asking, “would you like one?” Her proposition was met with an affirmative response. 

She returned a moment later yielding two orange popsicles which began to gleam with sweat the second they hit the swampy summer air. There they sat; Allison and the boy next-door, just not the one she would’ve expected. 

“Thanks for the -um- popsicle,” he said. 

“No problem,” she said. A pause. She cleared her throat. “Your -um- grass is looking really good.” She suppressed a laugh building up in her throat. To her, it was such an odd comment but to him, it was the highest of praise. 

“Thank you,” he said in such seriousness. The laugh building and building. She cleared her throat. 

“Very luscious,” she said, unable to contain herself. 

“Thank you,” in his serious voice. She couldn’t help it. The laugh erupted, tumbling off her tongue in thick cackles. She had one of those loud, hilarious-sounding laughs that were so funny, that those who heard it, started laughing, too. Fortunately, Todd wasn’t immune to her cackle. Soon enough, he was laughing at her laughing at him. They were laughing at each other. They were laughing together. 

A few moments passed before they had no laugh left to laugh. They caught their breaths. 

“It looks like it might rain,” he said, gesturing upward. 

“Good. It will water the luscious grass.” 

Surely enough, the sky had become quite overcast and was no longer nearly-cloudless, but very cloudy. The once solitary cloud was now joined by another and another until they formed a super-cloud of some sort. Allison smiled. 

She didn’t feel so alone anymore.