Sewage & Sunlight

Summers on the East coast sucked.

Scratch that. Actually, all seasons on the East coast sucked. But summers especially. I hated how the cold made my skin itch in the winter. I hated how the heat made my skin burn and sweat in the summer. Spring and fall weren’t even in-betweens; they were both equally uncomfortable. 

“Olly!” The young toddler bursting into my room didn’t have enough teeth to pronounce his L’s yet, so to any other person, it sounded like he was spouting nonsense. When I heard him speak, I felt like I understood a whole other language that only Cooper could speak. It made me feel special.

“Yeah?” I sat up. For the last two days, since school ended, I’d been mostly laying on my bed. Thinking. Which was boring. I don’t know if I’ve said this yet, but I hated summer. 

“Can we go swimming?” 

I groaned. “Can you ask mom?”

“She said to ask you.” 

“I dunno, Coop. I don’t really want to right now.” Don’t get me wrong. I loved swimming. We just didn’t have a pool. There was a creek in the woods behind our apartment that Cooper liked to play in. It was really shallow, slimy, and…yeah. No thanks. 

“Please?” He blinked at me, eyes brimming with tears. “Nobody ever wants to play with me.” 

Nobody was better at guilt tripping than toddlers. 

“Fine. Go get changed.” His brown eyes lit up and he ran out of the room.

I got up to close my door. My legs creaked from disuse, and I realized that I hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet today. It had to have been at least noon. 

I swapped out my pajamas for a black t-shirt and shorts. I’d learned my lesson before— going to the creek in any other color was a mistake. 

“Olivia!” My mom knocked on my door, just as I finished pulling up my shorts. “Take your brother to the creek, please!”

“I already said I was!” I opened my door, catching her mid-knock. “Can you come with?” The creek was always crowded with neighbor kids and their parents. Even though we’d been living here for nearly a year, the neighbors still thought that Cooper was my son. I hated the stares, the disgust. I hated them more than I hated summer. 

“No, I’m working. Just text me if you need anything, okay?” 

“Fine. Thanks, mom.” I walked past her and into the kitchen, hearing her follow behind me. We didn’t have an office, so she mostly did all of her work at the kitchen counter. 

“Cooper,” I yelled, “Are you ready?” 

“Almost!” I heard him squeal from mom’s room. He and mom shared a room because of his little-less-than-frequent night terrors. 

“Hurry up!” 

He came out of the room, dragging behind him a plastic shopping bag full of toys.

“What are you doing with that?”

“Bringing it swimming!”

“No. I’m not carrying that all back home.” 

“I’ll carry it!”

I gave him a look. “No, you won’t.” 

“Yes I will!” 

“Put it back.” 

“No!” 

“Then I’m not taking you.” 

“Olivia,” my mom butted in, “be the bigger person. You’re older.” I couldn’t take it when she said that. I was sixteen! I was allowed to be angry, sometimes.

“Okay,” I said slowly, “you can bring two toys, max. It’ll be too heavy to carry all of those.” 

“Fine,” Cooper said, and fished through his bag.

“Thank you!” I plastered on a smile. 

Cooper found two toys: a shovel and some sort of vehicle I’d seen at construction sites. After putting our shoes on, I grabbed his hand and went out the front door. 

Before closing it, I yelled goodbye to my mom, who didn't give an answer. It was fine. She was probably busy. 

I ended up with the shovel in one hand and Cooper’s hand in the other. We’d barely been outside a minute, and Cooper’s hand was already warm with sweat. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t let go of it until we were out of the parking lot and behind the building.

When I did finally let go, he ran ahead of me, across the grassy field and into the shaded area where the creek was. The creek separated the forest from… the rest of the world, I guessed, so trees tended to lean over it, making the water as cold in the summer as it was in the winter.

The creek was as crowded as it usually was. Adults had set up tents and camping chairs while their children splashed and screeched in the murky water. It smelled like sewage, dirt, and grass. It smelled like summer. 

I set up camp next to where Cooper left his Crocs, putting down the shovel and placing it next to the shoes. I took off my flip-flops and dipped my feet in the water, sitting on the edge of the creek and watching him play.

For the creek barely being a foot deep, Cooper was already soaked from head to toe. He was splashing around and laughing like he was made of pure joy and sunlight. It was marvelous, how the simplest things made children so happy. I put my head in my hands, elbows resting on my knees, as I watched him play alone. All the other children had already created little friend groups and were playing together on the other side of the creek. 

As the sun blazed on, I started feeling drowsy, closing my eyes and just feeling. Summer maybe wasn’t so bad, when I was in the shade, at least. 

“Hey!” An unfamiliar voice to my right said. For a moment, I thought someone was talking to me, but then realized that it was probably a parent yelling something to their child.

“Hello?” The voice said again, closer this time. Definitely talking to me. I opened my eyes and looked up. She was a girl, probably around my age, barefoot in a muddy white top and equally dirty cargo shorts. Her blond hair was down, tangled around her shoulders in a way that would have driven me crazy.

“Hi.” I replied.

“I don’t think I’ve seen you before. What’s your name?”

“Olivia.”

“I’m Chiara. Can I sit next to you?” 

“Yeah. Sure.” 

“Thanks,” she said, sitting down. “So. Is this your first time here?”

“No, I’ve been here a couple times. I just moved here last year.”

“To the apartments?”

“Yeah. You live there too?”

“Oh, no. I live a couple minutes down the street.” She leaned in and whispered, “I think my mom takes us here to meet with her secret boyfriend.” Chiara smirked and pointed at some tent in the distance.

I laughed. “No way.” 

“Yes way. She comes here on the weekends, when my dad’s at work.” 

“Shouldn’t you tell your dad?” 

“No!” She laughed, “What’s the fun in that?”

“They’re real people’s feelings!” I said. A little too passionately than I should have. 

“Oh,” her smile melted away, and she started to look a little uncomfortable. “I guess you’re right.”

“Sorry,” I muttered. “I caught my dad, um..” 

“Oh. Oh. I’m so sorry. I…” Chiara’s face turned red. She probably regretted sitting next to me now. I wanted to kick myself

“No! No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Don’t even start,” she said firmly. “It’s my—”

“Olly!” Cooper ran to me, kicking and splashing water all over us. On Chiara.

“Stop splashing!” I yelped, standing up to stop him. “What do you need?” 

“The shovel.” He seemed to notice Chiara. “Who’s she?” 

She waved. “My name’s Chiara. What’s your’s?” While she said this, she grabbed the shovel and handed it to me. 

“Thanks.” I said and handed it to Cooper, who hadn’t answered Chiara’s question yet. “What’s your name, Coop?” 

“I’m Cooper,” he said quickly, and then ran off again with the shovel. Chiara smiled as I sat back down. 

“Sorry he splashed you. He doesn’t really, um, notice things.” 

“No, it’s fine! He must be your—”

“Brother.”

“Oh, cool! I have a brother too, but he’s in college now.” 

“Cool,” I said.

“How about you?”

“Oh, I’m the oldest. It’s just me and Cooper.” 

“That must be nice, being the oldest.” 

“You would think,” I chuckled, “but no. I’m like his mom. Whenever I come here, people even believe I’m his mom. I get so many stares, it’s annoying. It makes me not ever want to have kids.” 

“Really?” Chiara blinked. “Like, they think you had a teen pregnancy?”

I nodded. “And the funny thing is, if he were my son, I would have gotten pregnant when I was like ten.”

“A pre-teen pregnancy? How disgusting!” Chiara joked, and I laughed. 

“Oh, my! I cannot have my own lovely children near that scum!” 

“If I ever have a kid,” Chiara stated, “it will be a cat. Or a dog. I don’t discriminate.”

“I do. It’ll be a cat. A girl cat named Lily.” 

“The irony,” Chiara said dryly, “a cat named after the one thing that could kill it.” 

“What’s more poetic than that?” 

“Cooper being allergic to chickens. Olivia being allergic to olives…” 

“Chiara,” I sounded out the syllables. “I’ve never heard that name before. What’s it mean?” 

“Apparently it means bright and luminous.” 

“You don’t agree?”

“No. I’m neither bright nor luminous.”

“I mean. From what I know about you, you seem to be.” The compliment slips from my mouth of its own accord. 

“Thanks. What about you? What’s your name mean?”

“I dunno. I’ll have to look it up when I get home.” 

“Do you wanna play in the water?” Chiara said suddenly. “I’m burning out here.” 

I wrinkled my nose. I would not, in fact, like to play in the water. But I was nice. “Sure.” I said it with a smile. I meant it with a frown. 

Chiara, unfortunately, caught me. “You don’t have to, if you don’t wanna,” she said. Then she added, “You’ll just be a loser if you don’t.”

I reached my hand under the water and scooped up a handful of mud. I did the childish thing. I threw it at her. 

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” I gasped, “I didn’t mean to hit you in the face! Seriously!” 

“That’s too bad, isn’t it,” she said, wiping her eyes. There were chunks of mud dripping onto her tank top and in her hair. She was a mess. 

And then Chiara picked up a glob of mud, and in a flash, something cold and wet slapped me in the face. 

“Oh, ew!” I sputtered. “It got in my mouth, Chiara!” I wiped the back of my hand over my lips, but that only seemed to make it worse.

“Oops. How’s it taste?” She asked innocently. I scowled and leaned forward, letting myself fall into the water. Of course, it wasn’t that deep, and I ended up on my knees. I dunked my face into the water and scrubbed the mud away. 

When I resurfaced, I turned to look at Chiara. “Are you coming in?” 

“It’s deeper over there.” She pointed up to where all the other kids were playing. 

“So?” 

“So, let’s go over there.” 

“I can’t. I have to watch Cooper.” 

“Let’s bring him!”

“I… Fine,” I huffed. “Cooper!” He wasn’t that far from us, but I still had to yell to get his attention. He looked up at me and ran over.

“What?” He asked. 

“Do you wanna go over there?” I pointed.

“Nope.” His response was instant. He ran off again.

I looked at Chiara and shrugged. What can I say? 

“Fine,” Chiara grumbled. “We can stay here.” 

I couldn’t understand why she wanted to stay over here with us. She could’ve gone over to the deeper water by herself, but she didn’t. I needed to understand why.

“Why stay over here with us?” I blurted.

“Because.” And that was all she said before she fell face-first into the water. She let out a sudden yelp and yanked her face out of the water. 

“What?” 

“I hit my nose on a rock,” she groaned. She brushed a finger across the area above her lip. “Am I bleeding?” 

“Not yet.” 

“Is that a threat?”

“What?”

She went quiet and laid back, so that her ears were completely under the water. “Man, I love this. I wish we could stay here forever.” She pushed herself up, elbows resting in the mud.

“Here? Like, the creek?” I gestured to the murky water we were marinating in.

“Not the creek. Just… here. Y’know?” 

And I did know. I might have been part of the Summer Hate Club, but deep down, I loved summer. The feeling of it, at least. It was so peaceful. It was careless, it was brainless. 

With Chiara laying next to me, and my brother splashing somewhere in the distance, I fell asleep. I fell asleep because I wanted to, not because I had to for school, not because I was tired, but because I was so at peace. 

And I wished I could stay there forever.