Three Months

I sit on the bench beneath the ferris wheel, its magnificent lights reflecting on the lake and the concession stand next to me covered in heaps of pink cotton candy. A square Polaroid rests on my leg. We were happy then, I was on your back and our friends were crowded around making ridiculous faces. Somehow we all fit in the tiny frame. The ferris wheel rotates in a perfect, even speed, and when it stops at the top, everyone takes sweet pictures of each other and of the view. I wonder if they’ll remember how they captured it all, too. 

I remember that summer of skeeball and jumping off the dock. Our friends insisted on fish tacos every night - except when they’d be shrimp or lobster - and we agreed every time. Time stood pretty still and I always slept in. The summer I met you, I had just gotten into my dream college and I had three months to just be me. My family rented a vacation home along the coast and I brought piles of books and even weird textbooks that I figured I could learn from if I ran out of things to do. All of which became entirely obsolete when we met. You were staying with your best friend’s family and working at the clubhouse right by the volleyball courts. I ordered a smoothie every afternoon and you started to recognize me. You remembered my order, at least - not that it was particularly hard. It wasn’t many strawberry banana smoothies later that your number was scribbled on the receipt and I left the clubhouse beet red. I waited three and a half days to text you, and we eventually made loose plans to get ice cream in the main part of town. We walked along the road a bit, and you told me you stayed with your friend every summer. I thought your stories about the customers at the clubhouse were funny and apparently the stack of textbooks I brought to the beach house was hilarious. I was compelled to get ice cream with you every day that week, and then I met your friend who insisted we go kayaking, then set off fireworks, then go to all the small movie theaters that only had showings at 3 PM. They quickly became my favorite pastimes. I remember the Fourth of July when we had a barbecue at your friend’s family’s house - there was cornhole and horseshoes and fun types of soda that I had never seen before. We walked along the dock, a huge group of us, your friend and all his cousins, and borrowed their family boat. It was so peaceful being on the water, and by the end of the night, my face practically hurt from smiling. 

Towards the end of the summer, we went to the carnival together. I had been wanting to go with you for so long. By that point, we had spent most nights with so many others around the town, also vacationing, or also in a sort of endless summer state like myself. I was perfectly content going to the photobooth and getting funnel cake, but you explained to me we had the perfect amount of people for laser tag and all the indoor arcade games. So we played skeeball together, and at the end of the night the two of us rode the ferris wheel. We never made it to the photo booth, but I didn’t mind. 

That night, you walked me home and started to explain a bit more your plans, which must not have come up in my many stories about moving away for college. And how I wanted to go to grad school and eventually move to the city. You were going home to work with your dad, and we weren’t sure just how easy it’d be to see each other once school started. But we stayed in our usual state of bliss for the next few weeks anyway and relished each firework show from the dock. Our last nights together, I said goodbye to your friends but not to you. 

We relied on every method to keep in touch - FaceTiming at night, impossibly long Snapchat streaks, and even the iMessage games that we could practically play half asleep. I remember my heart completely skipping a beat when I’d see a text from you. And I tried my best to cheer you up when the days seemed long at your dad’s shop. My first quarter, I shared stories of office hours and lab sections. You’d listen attentively and always remind me to bring my safety goggles.

But each phone call revealed a bit more how hard it was for me to make friends. And I could slightly sense how hard it was for you to stay home. I personally took all the credits in the world to avoid feeling completely out of place and you stopped going to the beach house with your friend over the summer.  You didn’t talk about your dreams outside of supporting your family’s business, but I knew you had them. And that they probably existed every day when you were reminded that your friends were all away at school. You didn’t talk about it much, but you always Snapchatted me back, and I never forgot my safety goggles.

The rest of the year was harder. I joined another lab, and it was also colder. Both left me feeling more isolated, and I hadn’t found a roommate for the following year. My texts started getting shorter, and I think you were focusing more on transferring. By the time summer came around, we hadn't really made any plans. 

We slowly drifted apart and I heard you met someone at home. I ended up changing my major and made some more friends. I think I was happy for a bit, though it was hard to consider losing you entirely. Instead, I imagined we remained friends orbiting each other. I thought of you every time I got funnel cake, and when I eventually finished grad school and moved to the city, I read all my weird textbooks.