Bitter Summer Story

I met Austin the summer when we were both fifteen. He was scrawny, a little blond, a little childish.

He still had that voice crack boys had during puberty, and it always confused me, since my brother Jason had gone past that years ago and was now growing a beard.

I would like to say our first encounter was at a romantic beach, or Uncle Jeremy’s penthouse, since that’s where most love stories I’d heard about started. Maybe if so, we would’ve lasted more than a summer. But our first encounter wasn’t that memorable, really. Which is funny, because a lot of girls liked Austin, and they all remembered the first time he looked at them. He was, what, the island heartbreaker?

I didn’t like him, though. Not at first, at least. His shaky laugh and the blue of his eyes didn’t appeal to me. I thought he was annoying, and he was Jason’s friend, and that by itself was reason enough for me to dislike him.

Though sometimes I think, maybe I did like him from the very beginning. Maybe it was all the attention he got that bothered me. I was never one to compete.

Add to it that that particular summer, I had recently cut my bangs, and I felt like I looked awful. I did look awful, according to Jason. He pointed it out once when Austin was standing next to him, tanned. It was the golden hour, and he smelled like the sea.

He looked at me when Jason shouted “Yo, Stace, the bangs look awful.”

He smiled.

I’d rolled my eyes and gone home.

We made eye contact over the next few days. I always turned my head away because I knew his eyes would go straight to my bangs. Stupid Jason had made it the only thing about me.

I watched them play beach volleyball, from time to time, and I watched them swim. All I ever did was watch them.

I knew my mom was bothered that I never made an effort to be included in whatever activities they had going on. I was bothered myself, sometimes. But I was in my reading phase, and all the main characters in my books were cute girls with bangs that stayed silent and looked shy. I was fifteen.

I did notice Austin’s eyes land on me every other minute in gatherings, and one time I did feel bold enough to smile. I tried to make it look cute. I highly doubt it did. But he smiled back, and it looked adorable. That’s when I allowed myself to think I liked Austin. Maybe his smile indicated my bangs weren’t that horrible.

I saw him sitting on the beach on the Wednesday after that. I don’t know what was in the air that particular hour, but I lay on the sand next to him. He turned to look at me, but he never spoke. It was a windy day. The waves were loud. My thoughts were too.

The usual followed, really. We danced in fields of long grass and threw sand at each other. We listened to Taylor Swift, or Drake, sometimes. Rock paper scissors was to decide.

The days were so long, but so short. I felt gorgeous… I felt gorgeous, and I felt free, and for the first time, I didn’t watch.

One night, we were lying on the grass. He was looking at the sky. I figured he loved the view. It is cliché, but I never noticed it. I never cared about pretty skies, I was looking at him. His nose was crooked, and his profile was that of any typical teenage boy, but he was my teenage boy.

He turned to me and stared at my bangs. I was self-conscious and told him to stop, but he leaned over and kissed my forehead.

“Your bangs are gorgeous, Stacey.”

I knew he was only saying that because I was insecure, but I kissed his nose anyway, and when we did it on the beach, he was inexperienced, and it was awkward, but he was gentle and loving. He made me discover the prettiest of skies.

He never talked to other girls the entire time we were together. I acted all careless and confident, and like it didn’t matter to me whether or not he had met a billion girls before meeting me, but I knew, and my mom knew that I would cry my heart out if he looked at someone else. Maybe he knew it too, and didn’t want to hurt me.

Jason was confused about how close Austin and I got, but I felt he was happy. I knew he liked Austin, and they got along great. I caught him looking at us from the corner of his eye once, and he smirked.

A month passed in a blur. The happiest blur in my life, and time had an orange hue to it. I realised that sometimes, it was actually like the movies.

September always comes around, though, really. Movies always end, and I always felt it coming. I was never sad or bitter. To this day, even. Though that might sound funny since a grown woman shouldn’t ever be bitter about a fling she had at fifteen, but that’s beside the point.

Loner Stacey’s love story was never meant to last more than a couple of fortnights. She was bound to go back to watching.

So when Austin told me “This was amazing, you are amazing, but I gotta go,” I didn’t cry. I didn’t even shed a single tear. I put on She & Him on my iPod and walked home and hugged my mom. We stayed silent for an hour, and I silently wondered, because I never stop wondering, whether our movie would have a sequel. Maybe I would be a pretty business lady and I would meet him at a summer resort where he works as a lifeguard many years later and we would fall in love all over again.

My mom got a call and had to leave the room soon after, and so I hugged my cat, for as long as cats let you hug them, which is never a lot, really. But I didn’t mind.

Then I hugged Jason, and he hugged me back so tight. It was the first time he ever did that. I knew he knew.

The memory stopped being orange not long after.

We packed our bags and left the island the week that followed. I never saw Austin again.