[COMPLETE]
When Hanna Haddad embarks on what's supposed to be another uneventful summer as a lifeguard on Cape Cod, a trip to the past comes as an unnerving surprise. The discovery of her estranged mother's journal opens up the world of tragedy and...
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The peculiar magic that surrounded summer as a child ceased to exist, or so it seemed.
The ache in my stomach, my slightly shaky hands, and that overhanging sense of dread in the air were always associated with the start of school and the end of enjoyment for another long nine months and some change, not the beginning of the best three months of the year.
I stood on the crowded sidewalk, in a blush-pink dress that felt too tight in all the wrong places, waiting for Colin to finish with his barrage of hugs, handshakes, and questions so I could give him a hug of my own. My mind kept wandering, somehow blocking out the cheers and laughter only associated with such an occasion: commencement, at Harvard no less.
It was May, and summer was starting all over again, the end of a beginning for every graduate reminiscing over their college years coming to a close.
But how come it felt like the beginning of an end for me?
I didn't look at each student in a cap and gown and wonder what it would feel like to be one of them, because I was going to be them, in less than a year. Instead, I wondered what it would feel like to ever be that happy again, to celebrate a success that didn't feel meaningless...to love the start of summer again, because all I wanted was for it to be over.
And it hadn't even started.
"You didn't have to wait for me." Colin crushed me into a hug, burying his nose into my hair. I squeezed him back with equal force, getting lost in his black gown that already seemed a size too big for him. He let me go after a few more comfortingly silent moments and held me out in front of him. "If I didn't have to still be here, I would've bailed way sooner."
I chuckled, hating how humble he was for such an impressive accomplishment. "To be fair, I hid my phone under my purse for half the diploma ceremony." I held out the sizable pink bag to show him, not realizing it was only half-zipped and ready to dump its contents onto the concrete. We both dove to the ground at the same time to salvage what we could, somehow everything but my phone.
"How long do these ceremonies last anyway, kid?" A familiar and slightly raspier version of Colin's voice loomed above my head as I gathered my now scratched-up tube of lipstick and stick of eyeliner. "Me and my buddies were too hammered to even remember our college graduation."
"Jesus Christ, Dad," Colin laughed, trying to pull away as his father forced him into the fifth hug of the afternoon.
I'd tried to loom in the background all day, only there because Colin had sworn no matter where he would be in the world next year, he'd stop everything to come to my graduation, and I could have never left that promise unreciprocated.
His mother stood behind me and placed a light hand on my shoulder as the two began to playfully bicker. I watched longingly but said nothing, returning to my fantasy land of the whole afternoon. Colin's older sister reappeared to break them up and squeeze her brother into another bone-crushing embrace.
