Hello August, Please Be Good To Me

Chapter 54: Where Did the Summer Go?

It's the second to last day of July. I'm still staring at the calendar in the kitchen, brushing my teeth, squatted down a bit, when I hear stifled chuckles. I look to the side to see Danté standing a foot away, crossed arms and shaking his head. "What are you doing?" To make a point, I flip the pages of the calendar, pretending to look around and behind it. My mouth is filled with spit and toothpaste, but I manage to gurgle out, "Hmm, trying to figure out when two months only felt like two weeks." Of course he doesn't understand me, and I wave him off, tramping back to the bathroom to rinse my mouth. I stare into the mirror at my reflection, eyes squinted tight because I can't see a thing, and pull my towel off the hook to wipe my mouth. I find myself wishing I could have done more this summer, then laugh at myself because that doesn't sound like something I'd even think about doing.

I feel like making tea instead of coffee for once, and go into the kitchen to boil some water. Now Danté is staring at the calendar, and I wonder what he's thinking. "The big birthday is a coming up, any plans?" I ask him, turning the heat under the kettle up. My brother finally looks away from the calendar and shrugs. "I don't know," and grabbing a banana off the counter from the bunch, he disappears into his room. Typical. Neither one of us is big on birthdays, and if anything happens it's due to the planning of someone else. The whistling of the water scares me half to death and I quickly remove it from the heat and dig around for a tea bag. The sugar isn't enough for me, and I add coffee creamer into my mug and stir the hot drink around. I don't know what to do and at the same time I want to do something. I'm still walking around in my bed clothes, but I'm not ready to pull on some jeans either. It's a nice sunny day this morning, clear from the kitchen window, and I stare out at our old trampoline that hasn't been touched since Danté started high school.

I gingerly sip my tea and flip on the TV in the living room to the news. I can hear my dad snoring in the backroom, and everything feels right in the world. Even though I can't ignore the pang in my chest telling me that my summer's almost over. After the tea, I sneak a bowl of ice cream with crushed Oreos, and quickly run to my room, lest I have to explain myself. Feeling a bit restless, I pull on jeans under my pajama top and take my ice cream outside to the trampoline and climb on top. I do a little bounce and try to eat my ice cream too. The sun feels good on my skin, but I know within less than an hour I'll be a victim of heatstroke. I'm not sure how long I stay out there, but my ice cream is gone, I'm sweating through my shirt, and I'm hopping higher and higher to see over the fence that separates us from our neighbors on all three sides. It isn't until my bounces slow that I feel sweat on my face. When I reach to wipe at my face, I realize it's tears and I'm crying. I can't pinpoint the reason, so I just let it flow. I don't feel sad, though do you have to be sad in order to cry?

I sit down on the trampoline, next to my empty ice cream bowl and wait for the tears to subside. They do. Eventually. I hug my body, propping my knees up, and start knocking the sides together. The fat of my legs gets in the way, and instead I hear the plop noise of my legs being slapped together. I do this for a couple more minutes, then I go back inside for my sketch book. When I return, there's a bird perched on the trampoline, and I run over hoping there's no poop. The bird flies away, and I sigh in relief. All clean, or as clean as a trampoline can be under the elements. Taking the tree facing the back of the house, I use it as the base for a tree house I have in mind, the old bitterness coming back from the days me and my brother used to beg our dad to build us one. We never got a clear answer. Then we moved houses. This tree isn't as great as the big oak tree we left, but for imaginative purposes, it works. I draw little stick people on the grass looking up, and then embellish the rope ladder I've drawn and few other things. I hear the door to the backyard creak open, and shake my head. "Danté, don't bother me right now," the footsteps approach but I'm so engrossed in making straight lines I don't look up. "Don't know how I should feel about you confusing me for your brother." My breath hitches. "Oh my God, I'm sorry!" I cover my hands with my mouth, letting my pencil drop in my lap. "No, no, it's alright," he says mockingly in a tone that says it's not alright. "I thought you'd be at work though," he says, sitting next to me and I shake my head. "My hours changed, remember? And why are you here?" I see him shrug in my peripheral. "I guess because you are."

We sit in companionable silence, and I turn to a new page in my sketch book to start over. The first tree house turned into a mess of smudges and eraser pieces. "Sing for me," I say, and I feel Justin scoot farther onto the trampoline. "What?" I turn my head. "Sing. For. Me." I give him a cheeky grin,but don't turn back to my sketch book. He looks like he really doesn't want to, but I've learned how to exert a certain power over Justin to get him to bend just a little. "Nope," he says and shakes his head. "Please? Please? Please?" I pat his knee and tilt my head just so. I'm not sure what I look like when I do this, because when I try to take a glimpse into a mirror, my face doesn't feel the same and I know that it can't be it. "Fine," he says gruffly, and I clapped excitedly. When he doesn't start up right away, I open my mouth to complain,but the first sound is Justin's voice. I close my eyes, afraid to break the spell I'm under. He's singing a song that's slightly familiar to me, but I don't ask what it is. I just listen.