Endless Summer

Longing; melancholic and wistful wraps me up in its familiar embrace. Thoughts of him linger as I palm the cool brass handle of the bedroom door. My breaths appears in front of me like smoke. The house is long since abandoned, no heat runs to keep it warm. I push open the door reluctantly, still unsure if I can go back to this place.

Frost covers the glass of the small window on the back wall. I can still see it in my mind, his silhouette a phantom standing with his hands deep in his pockets staring out the open window.

Back then, a cool summer breeze had floated through the window. It had to be night, for the sins we would soon commit were ones that needed the cover of the darkness.

As I wander into the room for the first time in three years, I am taken aback by how plain it is now. The string lights that once littered the floor are gone. The bed is a bare mattress, no blanket or pillows, just faded blue and tawdry sitting on the floor. The walls are no longer littered in his collection of thrifted paintings.

The bareness startles me. The last time I had been in this room it had felt like a palace. Eccentric and ornate. Had it always been so plain? Had I simply romanticized it? Perhaps it had been his presence that had made this room worth visiting. Now, all memory of him had been stripped away and torn down.

As I stare at the window, I wonder what thoughts ran through his mind that night as he stood waiting for me.

Did he think of his wife? Our friends? The inevitable infidelity? Did he think of me and the ten years of friendship that we would soon knowingly ruin? I certainly did. And I opened the door anyway.

I crumble to the floor in front of the bare mattress and rest my back against it, hugging my knees. For three years I had drowned the feelings in bottles and bodies and when those proved fruitless, I did the only thing that was left. I needed to return to the place of pain. It seemed to me, the only way to move forward was to go backward and relive it so that I might leave it where it died. I had been carrying the corpse for far too long. The rot was taking root, decaying my skin and bone.

The memories of that night reappear in vast color and detail as I allow it to resurface.

Footprints in the sand as we walked hand in hand beside the water. He told me of his dreams and wishes that I was relieved to hear hadn’t died. With all that had transpired the last year I wasn’t sure if he still had it within him to dream.

The thought of him losing all he had worked for had bothered me immensely. That was, perhaps, when I realized a simple friend wouldn’t have reacted the way I had when I found out. It was then I realized I loved him and had for some time.

He told me of his failures and struggles. He confided in me the issues in his marriage and that he was filing for divorce. I sat with him while he shuffled through the paperwork his lawyer gave him.

The deep ocean blue beside me gave the moment a dreamy haze. It didn’t seem possible that I was walking hand in hand with the boy I had denied when he tried holding my hand when we were fifteen.

Our footsteps disappeared in the thick white sand as we made our way to his house. Crossing the wooden bridge that connected his home to the beach, we tracked sand up the stairs and into his living room.

Night fell and with it my conscience. As I think of it now, I suppose it was selfish. I was wrapped up in my own ideas of longing and desire, what had been unrequited for so long suddenly felt destined.

As I lay there awake tossing and turning in the bedroom he offered me, something compelled me to stand.

I crept through the living room and made my way upstairs. The steps were draped in carpet, allowing my steps to remain soft and secretive. Allowing me the chance to turn back. But I didn’t.

My hand shook as I reached for the brass door handle of his room. I imagined him on the other side of the door and wondered if his heart too thundered like mine did. Did he feel the same anticipation? Were either of us aware of what would soon transpire?

As the door opened, I saw him there, by the window. As if he, too, were waiting for me.

The summer evening chill floated through the room, ruffling his dark hair. He closed the window, shielding us from the moons’ witness and met me in the middle of the room. With a steady hand, but shaky breath he caressed my cheek.

“Is this wrong?” He asked me as he leaned forward. He paused, mere inches from my face.

“Can love ever be wrong?” I whispered, unsure of the answer myself.

He sighed and pressed his forehead to mine. Any restraint he had, snapped.

Soon our clothes were on a pile on the floor and our shadows danced across the wall.

When the moon began its descent, taking its haunting glow with it, we lay strung out across his bed.

That first time was certainly not the last time. It continued for months, and I continued to tell myself it was ok because it was love. Because I loved him better than she did.

Secret meetings in secret places that were just ours. Our own little secret garden. If I could have willed time to stop, we would still be there, in this room. Summer would have lasted forever.

But winter came and killed all that tried to grow. For how can a seed buried in darkness bloom?

When I kissed him goodbye months after that first night, something within me knew it would be the last time. I had laid awake that night listening to his breaths, trying to memorize every bit of the moment. Committing it to memory because I was convinced this was my one great love and it was about to end.

I kissed him long and slow and swallowed the tears back down, relishing in the moment. Relishing kissing him one final time.

He never told me what he had decided, but somehow, I knew. The divorce was no longer happening.

I never heard from him again after that night. Lust and desire had hypnotized me so thoroughly I was willing to be his other woman.

Can true love ever be wrong? As I sit with my back against the bed, I again ponder the question.

Covering my face with my hands, I let the tears fall. I cry for the love that was lost. I cry for the version of myself who was a fool. A naive fool. I cry until no more tears come and I force myself to stand. I walk around the empty room one more time and look out at the snow-covered beach.

I watch our phantom figures run into the water laughing and kissing as the waves spray us. I think of us in the back of the car laughing and giving up only to stumble upstairs.

So many intimate moments that are mine. Just mine. But they were moments I stole. Moments I was never supposed to have.

After hours of sitting in the room where the torrid affair began and ended, I move towards the door. I can’t help the grin that spreads across my face as I take in the room. I can picture our silhouettes intertwined, when I didn’t know where you ended and I began. Where we lived and loved as one. Now I am the one left alone in this room. Left with the memories of that summer that we treated as if it would be endless. I think we both knew it would inevitably end, but that didn’t stop us from falling.

Perhaps it was endless and, in some timeline, or future or past life we are still there, in that room. An endless summer. But in this lifetime, I must accept we are not in that room. Time moved on, and so must I. I’ve been in that room for three years and today I finally leave.

I hold the cool brass door handle against my palm and pull it open, and this time, my hand doesn’t shake.