Portrait of a High School Summer Night
07.25.18
Do you remember the night we went skinny dipping? We hopped a fence and I kissed a boy through the chain link and whispered goodbye to him before meeting you by the waterslide. We tore our clothes off and left our underwear by the pool and you pushed me in. I’d seen it coming, but I played along in mock surprise and I remember being so grateful to finally be able to escape the summer heat. You came cannonballing in right after and we laughed and splashed at each other and after a while, we hugged, naked and exhilarated by all the possibilities of that summer stretching out before us.
Everything was simpler then, and free, and I remember being so happy that I didn’t have to worry about having to wake up in the morning. Every problem I’d ever known - the innocent problems of a bygone era, like tests, and quarrels and little heartbreaks – seemed to wash away every time I dunked my head into the water and broke the surface, letting every heavy thing disappear with the droplets.
We swam there for a while, soaking everything in, feeling the water on every part of our bare skin, and laughing at the new strangeness of it. I remember floating on my back and looking up at the sky and, even though you couldn’t really see the stars, thinking it was beautiful – so clear and still – just an infinite and indifferent expanse rolling on and on and on, nuanced with all the black and purple shades of the deep night.
After a while we sat at the edge of the pool with our feet in the water, and even though I don’t quite remember what we talked about, I do remember being happy that I knew you and had you as a friend. And I remember giggling in the dark at some harmless, charming thing you said while telling a story about someone you once knew.
Sometimes things would go quiet and we would just gently splash our feet and I felt lucky to be able to smile into a silence that was both warm and shared, without a single care in the world. And then eventually we put on our clothes, gathered our things and hopped back over the fence into the humid stillness of the sleeping city, just a couple of light heads and full hearts laughing and stumbling home.
