The Last Week of August

The summer everyone left, I stayed.

Julie—also known as juliebearxo416@aol.com—sent emails from a cramped internet café in Rome.

“Italian boys are sooo hot. And gelato is better than any ice cream at home. Wish you were here. Hugs and kisses.”

I was so not there.

And Danny was off the grid in Asia, riding elephants and hiking ancient temples. Achieving full spiritual enlightenment before high school even started. Promising postcards that never came.

And I was at Alonzo’s Cafe, proving my work ethic to my dad, also known as The Grand Dictator of Teenage Girl Suffering.

“You need to learn responsibility, Sam” he said, shaking a finger at me.

“I’m literally thirteen,” I argued.

“Alonzo needs the help. Your birthday is just around the corner. Nearly fourteen. When I was fourteen, I had school plus two jobs already.”

So naturally, I was sentenced to life in coffee prison.

Not even Starbucks.

Just Alonzo’s.

The off-brand version of my misery.

That night, I opened my Urban Outfitters journal and wrote:

“Kill me now.”

And underneath it, possibly a five-paragraph essay comparing my dad to Darth Vader, complete with MLA citations and a Venn Diagram.

Meanwhile, my best friends were off having the summers that would define their lives.

Writing poetry in a cafe where F. Scott Fitzgerald probably sat.

Kissing international boys under foreign stars.

Leaving me behind in the heat of a summer, doomed to mediocrity.

Stuck in the suburbs. With a broken air conditioner. Perfecting the fine art of stacking paper cups.

Monday through Friday was always the same, a single episode stuck on an endless loop.

Stack.

Wipe the counter.

Pump the syrup.

Replace the napkins.

My most valuable work skills? Daydreaming and self-pity.

The schedule was as follows:

From 9-10: Mourn my friends’ absence. Envision their thrilling, life-altering adventures.

From 10-12: Sink into a deep existential crisis about wasting my prime, laboring away at this not-even—Starbucks-or- anywhere-in-Europe café.

From 12-1: Dissociate. Daydream about being somewhere else. Anywhere else.

1-3: Repeat thoughts until end of shift.

And so it went.

Day after day.

The same episode on replay.

Then, in the last week of August, I finally caught a break.

A white knight appeared—not on a horse, but on a skateboard, rolling through the dying days of summer like he had nowhere to be and all the time in the world.

Sun-bleached hair and Vans with the laces undone, twirling headphones around his iPod Nano, scanning the menu like he hadn’t already decided.

“What’s good?” he asked, one headphone dangling from his ear.

I could hear The Killers—Read My Mind—blasting.

We locked eyes.

“Everything,” I shrugged. “I can add as much sugar as you want.”

I smiled.

He grinned like I was funny. Like he knew something I didn’t.

I liked it. I liked him. And I could tell he liked me back.

All it took was five seconds.

I can’t explain it, but sometimes you just get this feeling.

Like the universe has tilted slightly in your direction. Like something small but irreversible has happened.

A spark. A shift.

A chemical reaction.

Like baking a cake—you can’t go back to eggs or batter once it’s in the oven.

It’s these little moments you keep. The ones you bottle up and carry with you. The ones that keep you young.

The next day, he came back.

And the day after that.

“You always work?” he asked.

“You always skateboard?”

“Yeah, but I do it with passion. Passion is life.”

His words were so profound to my thirteen year old ears. A modern philosopher.

His name was Ethan.

From California.

In town, staying with cousins before school started. Private school. He had an AIM screen name with too many X’s in it and parents who let him dye his hair and fly on his own.

A trailblazer.

He had a scar on his left elbow from wiping out on pavement when he was eight, and when I asked why he hadn’t quit skating after that, he said:

“I dunno. Just kept going. You just get back up.”

A war hero. Invincible. Captain America.

One afternoon, he wrote his number on a napkin.

I stared at it, knowing every text would cost me five cents.

Darth Vader would not be pleased.

He must have known, too, because at 9:00 PM sharp, when calls were free, my flip phone buzzed.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” I said back.

I sat on my bedroom floor, listening to the sound of his voice. It was full of summer.

“Wanna do something?”

“Like what?”

“Like anything.”

That night, I waited until my dad was asleep, then slipped out the back door, bike tires humming against the pavement.

Bright pink converse high tops going round and round.

Julie and Danny had written little notes on the rubber toe caps with Sharpies before they left.

Julie <3 Danny <3 Sam <3 BFFs 4ever.

A true friendship contract. Signed in permanent ink. Basically, blood.

He was already waiting at the corner, one foot on his skateboard, pushing it forward just enough to keep moving.

“You made it,” he said.

“I’m here,” I said.

He stopped and skated closer, just a few inches away.

“You kind of look like Selena Gomez,” he said. “You’re pretty.”

I froze.

Glad it was dark out to hide flushed cheeks and any signs of teenage girl malfunctioning.

We were Jack and Rose, I told my journal.

Romeo and Juliet.

Tragic lovers separated by geography and a combined net worth of $62 dollars in crumpled bills and loose change.

We raced to the park, flying past streetlights and cul-de-sacs, through the kind of warm air that only exists before summer dies.

That air—the kind that melts on your skin, makes everything tingle, makes everything feel like summer might last forever.

You forget that winter even exists.

At the playground, he pushed me on a swing.

We had a contest to see who could swing higher.

I swear I won. Maybe he let me.

We sat on a wooden park table, staring at the sky like kids who still believed in wishes.

It was quiet, except for crickets.

“You ever been to California?” he asked.

“No,” I said.

“You should come. We could skateboard on the pier.”

“I don’t skateboard.”

“I’d teach you.”

His hand was close enough to touch.

“What’s California like?” I asked.

“Beautiful and sunny most days. You can ski in the morning and surf in the afternoon. You can do anything there.”

I guess I was moving to California now.

I wondered how much it would take to get The Grand Dictator of Teenage Girl Suffering on board with this new life plan.

“You can do anything there,” I repeated his words.

“Anything.”

Was I in the company of a fourteen-year-old genius? A sage?

It sounded perfect.

Somewhere between the stars and the sound of us laughing, he leaned over and kissed me.

It wasn’t fireworks.

It wasn’t a slow motion movie moment.

It real and had no weight. Quiet and warm.

Pure without design.

The kind of kiss that lingers—not on your lips, but in the spaces between years and decades.

For one week, I was in love. Summer burned bright around me. Electric and endless.

He brought me gas station candy during my break. Skittles and Warheads, things that made my tongue sting and my heart race.

We held hands and walked in the park.

He said stupid, sweet things that I held onto like secrets.

We talked for hours and I believed everything he said.

He was fourteen after all.

For one week, the world was small enough to fit between the hours of my café shift and my Razr phone.

And then—

Just like that—

It was over.

The last time I saw him, he was standing at the counter, hands stuffed in the pockets of his hoodie.

“When do you leave?” I asked.

“Tomorrow.”

“Oh.”

He nodded like he knew. Like I knew. Like there was nothing else to say.

Then, he slid a burned CD across the counter. A playlist.

I think it’s the way fourteen-year-olds love each other. With sugar and music.

“It’s not a goodbye present,” he said.

“Okay.”

“It’s just songs.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t forget me, alright?”

I wanted to say something back. Something cool. Something important. Something that would live in his head the way this moment would live in mine. I could only smile softly and nod.

A line for lattes was forming, and he was already pushing through the door.

Already stepping onto his skateboard, rolling into the late August light. A final wave.

Then, he wasn’t there anymore.

That night, I played the CD.

It started with a song by The Strokes I had never heard before.

I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling. At the peeled paint where glow-in-the-dark stars used to be.

Too old for them, I thought. But I left one. Just one.

I focused on it as the music played, as the sounds of his summer filled the room.

A week ago, I didn’t know him.

A week ago, I was counting the days until school started. Until Julie and Danny came back. Until life returned to usual.

Now, I wasn’t sure I wanted normal.

I felt different somehow.

I thought about calling Ethan.

I thought about texting, even if it cost me. Even if Lord Vader of Cell Phone Bills himself would emerge from the shadows to lecture me about the financial burden of teenage texting.

But I didn’t text.

Because it was almost September.

Because the summer was slipping away, and soon the air would turn crisp, and the leaves would burn orange and red.

Because I was thirteen.

Because some people aren’t meant to stay.

They just belong to the in-between— in the last breath of summer heat, in the glow of a midnight streetlamp, when sleep is a distant thing.

They leave you with memories of magic and youth, tucked away like a handwritten note in the back pocket of an old pair of jeans.

Years from now, I’ll find that CD in the back of a drawer at my dad’s house. Scratched and unplayable.

I bet I’ll still know every track by heart.

Because even though summers can’t last forever, the music always does.