Like a Cool Breeze on a Hot Summer Day

No one seemed to remember Illea Johnson. 

She was a daughter. A sister. An accomplished academic student. A successful athlete. A kind classmate. Someone beautiful and kind, as they would go on to say. Someone with such a bright future.

A girl. 

But everyone seemed to forget who Illea was. 

A memory.

And I wished I could.

Illea was not exceptionally kind or beautiful as they would say. She was an average person who knew she was average. But no one else wanted to accept that hard truth. Her teachers crowed about how brilliant she was. Her parents loved to parade her around. Even her friends admired her.

For what? What was there to admire about her? If it had not been for her rich parents, would she have gone through all those preppy tutoring sessions? Been forced into such a wide selection of sports it would make any college accept her? 

But even through the swell of jealous emotions, Illea became another nameless face in the diverse spread of my school. Like a cool breeze of a hot summer day, Illea came and went too fast for me to bask in it. 

It was raining that day. It had started as a shimmering spring mist, a ghost of a rainbow through the weak rays of sunlight, until the skies darkened and the heavens opened. Droplets pelted the earth, harsh and unrelenting. The gray air was a chilly embrace, coalesced with the freezing tears of ice water. 

I listened as the steady rhythm of water against my umbrella became a rhapsodic heartbeat, boots splashing through the puddles of foggy water as I traipsed in silence. The long walk to my bus stop to school was often lonely, but a place for my thoughts to brew.

From my small apartment, there was a shortcut that sliced right through the main road, directly to the stop. It was muddied by rainwater, my boots leaving watery prints in the dirt as I walked. It would’ve been more uncomfortable if I had not been lost in thought.

But if I hadn’t been lost in thought, I would’ve noticed her immediately. 

The trail opened up to a clearing, a field of soggy grass matted by the downpour. Standing in the middle, there was a girl. Her head was tilted to the sky, no umbrella, a navy blue bag slewn across her feet, now trekked with dirt.

If I had noticed, I would’ve paused immediately, but I kept walking. It was only the violent crash of loud cursing that caused me to jolt my head up.

The girl was totally soaked. Her dark wet hair plastered to her forehead as she tried to angrily blow it out her face. Her shoes had completely sunk into the mud, cloudy water pooling around her ankles. She was a student, I could tell from the drenched uniform.

What was a student doing out here in the middle of nowhere, with a terrible downpour and no umbrella? Either she was a complete idiot or a victim to misfortune.

Or maybe both. I was tempted to walk away, her furious cursing was not the least bit approachable. If anything, I didn’t want her to direct her frustrations on me. I had to get to the bus in time and I didn’t want to talk to anyone anyways-

“Here.”

She snapped her head up to stare at me as I carefully made my way across the field against my better will, offering her my extra umbrella. Her eyes were slanted upwards, like a sly fox’s eyes might, dark and curious. It almost fooled me into thinking she had a quiet and collected personality, just from her eyes.

“Oh.” She leaped upwards, brushing off her bag and straightening her uniform. Taking the umbrella tentatively, she offered me an embarrassed smile. 

“You didn’t have to hear any of that, did you?”

“Any of what?” I lied.

“I like you,” she decided, taking the umbrella from my hand. She struggled with the runner, caught on the bottom spring, so I snatched it back.

“Hey!”

“I’m helping,” I said. “Don’t be so hasty.” The stretcher snapped, the entire left side of the umbrella collapsing into itself. It pooled into a stretch of useless fabric over my arms.

“Great.” She ran her fingers through her short wet hair, lifting her head to shout at the sky again. “You suck!”

In response, the sky roared with thunder. 

“You’re gonna make it mad,” I said, moving so my umbrella could shield the both of us from the onslaught of relentless rain. “Let’s go. I’ll take you to the bus stop with my umbrella, but then you’re figuring it out yourself.”

“A real gentleman you are,” the girl retorted. 

“Eight dollars.”

“What?”

I pointed at the discarded umbrella. “That was eight dollars.”

She said nothing, shutting up so fast that I couldn’t help but smile. We walked through the clearing, to where the main road could be seen from the trees. 

“Name?” she said after a moment of silence. She seemed to be the type who couldn’t stand silence, as if she needed conversation. On the other hand, it was easy for me to delve into my thoughts and ignore my surroundings.

“Ethan.” We approached the trail that cut into the road, my bus stop on the other side of the street. Car tires slashed through puddles, splashing water onto the sidewalks, their lights swimming on the wet asphalt. 

“You?”

“Illea,” she said, her eyes on the busy street. “Illea Johnson.”

Some faces are a blur. Forgettable. A drop of ink in a vast ocean, disappearing into the folds of deep blue before the naked eye can even notice. 

But some are like sparks to a forest, and they light everything up with their glorious flame.

Illea was one of them. She refused to be forgotten. She was fiery and glorious and everything that a spark could be.

“Hey.” She was at my locker again, the third day in a row. Her dark hair was pulled back into a lazy ponytail. Now that she wasn’t completely drenched, I realized her hair had a sort of frizz to it that made it often look messy, but not necessarily in a bad way.

“What now?” I said, slamming my locker door shut, trying to turn away. Illea ducked under my arm and intercepted me once again.

“I just wanted to say hi,” she shrugged. “I’m trying to be nice.”

“You’re being-”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, holding a finger to my lips. “Don’t finish that sentence.” I couldn’t help the warm feeling blossoming in my chest, so I accepted her friendship. The week had passed by, and two more, and Illea had been someone I spoke to everyday. Someone I went to the coffee shop to get cake. Someone who laughed with me and joked with me. A friend.

Before, she had been nothing more than a breeze on an autumn day, barely noticeable. But now, as I passed her in the hallways, she would wave and say hi. It was her and now I knew her as who she really was. She was not a faceless, nameless stanger.

Because Illea was someone I found comfort in the summer that passed.

It was an unbearably warm day when Illea’s spark had faded. I watched from the sidelines as she lost her race. I heard whispers that her grade average had dropped. Finally, as I was walking with my class, I saw Illea race from her classroom, her friends calling after her in worry.

“Don’t follow her,” one of her friends had said to the other. “She needs time alone.”

My eyes dropped to my teacher, who was too busy speaking to another teacher to care. So when she turned away to continue, I slipped away from the line and disappeared down the hall. Just in time, I saw a flash of her shoe disappear into an empty classroom

“Illea?” I called. There was no response. “Illea, I’m going in.”

“Please don’t,” came a muffled voice. I did anyway. She was crouched in the corner, her head buried into her arms, trembling with sobs hidden by her hands. 

“Hey,” I knelt beside her, gentle. “Are you alright?”

She lifted her head to look at me, her eyes rimmed red with unshed tears. Hastily, Illea wiped at her wet cheeks and turned away. “I’m okay.”

“You’re lying,” I noted, sitting down beside her and offering her a tissue. She took it. “You can tell me, you know.”

“It’s just pressure,” she said, her voice raspy, still lying. “And none of my friends get it.”

“Well I am your friend but I don’t like you,” I answered. “So you can tell me.” She laughed, a little forced, but the sound warmed my heavy gut with relief.

“I think I just need a hug.”

So I wrapped her into my arms and she buried her head in my shoulder, sobbing. Her tears were cool against the itchy fabric, against the unbearably hot air. I said nothing but let the silence speak unspoken words I couldn’t say. Even though I didn’t know everything that was happening to her, I knew she needed support rather than counsel. 

You’ll get through this, I wanted to say. We can get through this together. 

Illea had told me that she felt comfortable around me because she felt as if she was a blank slate when she met me. I had not known who she was until the colors finally began to bleed through the paper, becoming the beautiful painting that I would know her as. There were still empty spaces that Illea would fill in throughout her life, not me or her friends or her family, because I was not the painter.

You are the painter, Illea. You control your fate, you control the colors you choose to show. Just as how I control my canvas, so shall you.

And as I hugged her, I wished desperately that those words would somehow reach her. And for some reason, I just knew that she could hear them. 

Illea Johnson died in the July of next summer.

The details weren’t discussed at the funeral. People had cried. People had said she was a daughter. A sister. An accomplished academic student. A successful athlete. A kind classmate. Someone beautiful and kind. Someone with such a bright future.

No one seemed to remember Illea. 

And no one knew that it was a suicide. 

But I knew because she left me a note

Dear Ethan…

Firstly, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being selfish. I’m sorry for making these brilliant days of your life so sad. I know you want me to explain why I did it, but I can’t. And maybe you don’t even need to know. I’m tired. But you made me feel like it was okay to be tired

I have two requests instead.

I want you to move on. I know it’s hard and a total dick move from me because I’m dead. Especially for someone who cared about me. These days will pass like a page in a book. And when it passes, I want your book to become as bright and full of happiness as you wished for me.

My second request, I want you to remember me. Remember me for the things I really was, a jerk maybe. Moving on doesn’t mean you get to feel nothing for me, idiot. And I’m asking you to do it because no one else will. 

Hurt for me. Laugh for me. Live for me.

That day. That rainy day. Everything felt so fast. The cars, the rain, your smile, our conversation, the bus ride. Enjoy those things. Enjoy the things that move on too quickly, because those are the things that live the longest.

Have a good life, Ethan. My friend.

Illea Johnson.

Enclosed was eight dollars, pinned to the top of the paper.

So I remembered Illea Johnson. I remembered her to be selfish, a terrible student, a jerk. No one seemed to accept that she was broken, that she had been a terrible student, a losing athlete, a rebellious daughter, before she died. 

No one accepted that her life before her death was still a part of her life. It was who she was and not who she is.

Despite that, I also knew her to be a kind, hilarious and beautiful girl with a bright future, even though she made me feel terrible sometimes. Because that’s who she is. She was sometimes exceptional and she was sometimes average. She left an emptiness in my chest that still weighed more than an entire meteorite, one that I wanted to forget so desperately.

But I remembered her even though it hurt. Because I had to do what she had asked of me and I couldn’t help it. Even though I had only known Illea for a short time, I remembered her.

Illea Johnson was like a cool breeze on a hot summer day. She was so fast, too fast for me to bask and refresh in the breeze. 

But the fast things are what live the longest in our memories.