last summer

thirteen

"Your back beneath the sun, wishing I could write my name on it"
- august by Taylor Swift

" Wind whines and whines the shingle,
The crazy pierstakes groan;
A senile sea numbers each single
Slimesilvered stone.

From whining wind and colder
Grey sea I wrap him warm
And touch his trembling fineboned shoulder
And boyish arm.

Around us fear, descending
Darkness of fear above
And in my heart how deep unending
Ache of love. ,,

- James Joyce

Somewhere in August
Our last summer with you

"You ever think about what it would be like to live here?" Sonny asked, floating around in the pool on his back, only his face and feet above the water.

He looked a lot younger then, barely fourteen years old. His skin was pink around his cheeks and nose (which was quite buttonish then) his face was softer, a little sweeter.

It was funny he asked that then because he had no idea he would be the one out of all of us to live there someday, someday soon. Sooner then I would have liked.

"We live here every summer." Niccolo had looked the same to me, sunbathing on his stomach just by the edge of the pool, his back strong and broad from football, his skin olive and tan from the sun, hair long and untrimmed.

I still had braces that summer and my hair was awful from the humidity. I got out of the pool quicker than I needed to, almost slipping on my way to grab a hot pink beach towel from a big fluffy stack on the edge of the fire pit my abuela had set out for us.

They keep their conversation about living in the house going but I draw it out, the gash along my leg tingling from the salt water of the pool.

I pulled the towel around me tight and cursed under my breath words I wasn't allowed to say yet when I felt the towel scrap over a cut I had gotten on my leg from some coral the day before.

"You good Stass?" Niccolo looks up at my from the wrong direction, rolling over onto his back to look straight up at me. "Fine!" I smile, too much, too smiley, too happy.

I can't even look back at him, I just can not. I turn away with my fluffy towel, sitting down on the white painted wooden bench in front of the fire pit on the concrete. Everything out here is so perfectly colored it makes me feel like I'm living inside a movie.

The house a perfect shade of sky baby blue, the roof a perfectly clean white. The concrete is almost marble grey and all of the furniture is white, baby blue and navy blue with some coral mixed in.

The sky is blue and white too and the sand is a perfect tan. Everything here is so matchy that I must be dreaming.

Dogs run out of the back door, Shepherd was just barely one years old in June and Sonny's dad, Uncle Rob's, super old chocolate lab named Ryder runs out after her, too slow for me not to pity the poor guy.

My tia says Ryder is on his very last summer which made me start to cry. I didn't take death lightly then, I didn't take a lot of things lightly then.