short story about melancholy
When you’re in high school, the summers are all you think about. Long days with no responsibilities spent on aimless adventures. Long nights with no end, talking like experts while still too young to drive. To adults, we were babies taking our first steps, but we believed we’d already lived and mastered life. The last high school summer sounded like the knell of childhood. The adventures still happened, and those talks—while more refined—remained naïvely confident, but melancholy replaced whimsy.
“What are we going to do?”
I never planned to date in high school. It was short-sighted. The social risk was embarrassingly high, and the deadline was inevitable. Of course, I’d felt desire, but I would suppress it. That was until I met her.
When she first talked to me, I was oblivious. Sure, she laughed a little too hard, and we spoke a little too much, but in my mind, we were nothing more than friends. And yet, friends don’t exchange fleeting glances after an accidental touch, or waste hours on meaningfully meaningless texts. By the time I realized my mistake, it was too easy to say yes.
Despite my doubts, we started dating in our final high school June. We never spoke about it, but we knew we were on a timer. Every day, I would walk to her house, and we would spend the day together. It didn’t matter what we were doing. If we did so together, it was beautiful. I felt reborn.
My family complained that I spent more time at her house than mine, but I didn’t care. I knew I would always see my family, but her? With her, the finish line was omnipresent and unasked questions loomed. I no longer knew what love was, or what the best choices in life were. Throughout high school, I’d isolated myself from a wealth of emotions, convinced that I was doing “what was right.” But if doing so had shut off this christening and left me less, was it ever correct? It seemed that I was lesser for it.
In August, the questions could no longer be ignored. Neither of us wanted it to end, but we could only lie to ourselves so much. It was the last night of a weekend trip to her family’s vacation home. We’d spent the days sunbathing and swimming, the nights cheating in Monopoly. It was domestic in the best sense. And then, as we sat along a rocky cove—me skipping rocks; her watching the waves crash—she prompted the truth, so we didn’t have to lie.
“What are we going to do?”
I wish she hadn’t asked. Our lie was comforting, and I couldn’t imagine moving on without her.
“I don’t know. Sometimes good things fall apart.”
We both fell silent. The sound of the ocean was drowned out by the rush of blood pounding in my ears. But then, a strange guttural croak shattered the silence. With tremors coursing through her body, she turned away, hiding her face in trembling hands. I moved to hold her, but before I could, she lunged at me. Arms wrapped around my torso, face buried in my shirt with tears soaking through the fabric, she clung to me. Her voice was muffled and shaky, but I knew what she was saying before the words left her mouth.
“I love you.”
I didn’t respond. Sometimes the words just don’t reach, so I held her tighter, watching the birds fly south, hoping that she would understand.