Carolina [h.s]

twenty nine

south carolina
july 1990

***

Vada
//

It's like we're twelve years old again. Sneaking treats and telling secrets under hidden blanket forts.

We pull off every sheet from my bed and gather the chairs from the kitchen. Grams calls us silly. But when two days pass and we still haven't moved from the living room she tells us we better clean up when we're done.

The fort is big enough to fit both Juliet and I. It's quilt-draped and wooden chair sturdy, lit up by multi-colored Christmas lights. They hang above us and twirl around the legs of the chairs legs and in between layers of blankets.

We use flash lights from my grandpa's old garage to read to each other. Whispering the words about unrequited love, and romance we know only happens in fairy tales. We take turns flipping pages of A rose in Winter laughing when we make impressions of the deeply masculine described voices.

My girl eats pretzels as I chew on taffy. She drinks water and I stick to root-beer. We push ourselves up on our elbows and lay on our tummies, feet hanging and swinging behind us.

"Okay, no more stupid gushy romance shit," Her eyes are clear of any makeup and her washed out pink-blonde hair is down and air-dried from the shower.

I turn the flashlight from the pages of the book and shine it on her face. Her cheeks fill with air as she sighs out softly, and her smile is kind of a beautiful sad.

She's been here everyday since we got back from Dallas.

With her boy and his boys gone around the state lines and who knows where else, we've been keeping each other company. But I know my girl, she yearns for her love and every day dawns on her.

I search her face and look from her eyes to her chin to her nose. She's in black boy shorts and I'm in baby blue. She's covered in an oversized sweatshirt and I'm wearing a grey tank.

Her eyes are tired and bloodshot red. Not getting any sleep when Zayn calls at all hours of the night from another state. Mine were the same.

"Is this my future?" She asks herself more than me.

"Always waiting for him to call, and never actually being with him?" Tears brimmed her eyes.

Juliet's clingy in sadness. I knew she wouldn't do well on her own in her house, especially now that her mom was back. We're attached at the hip and I'm glad I can give her comfort. But I knew I wasn't enough.

When she's cried everything she has, we turn on the television and flip through channels until we land on some cheesy game show. Bright blues and yellows wash over the blanket walls of our fort and the volume is on low.