It begins here: Drinking lemonade and slurping lucky charms out from styrophome cups (gnawed on )- hands too clumsy and fingers too lazy to keep cool milk from frolicking out onto sunburnt thighs. On this almost October morn I think: “I could get used to this.”
I search your face for something unfamiliar. You squint. Your eyelids still sting from the excess of sunscreen you lapped on the day before when you took me out for another “just friends” picnic.
Suddenly you discover that I have a scar. Something you have always suspected, even searched for, even dreamed of - but never dared to see (until now). My scar glistens in the sun where it sits a top my chin like a fragile ant waiting for a sign, and you say: “it’s shaped like fog.”
I am quick to retort (as always): “but fog is shapeless.”
And because you like the way I look when I say “fog” - like a squirrel caught in the act - you smile ever so sweetly and keep quiet (even though we both know that ‘fog’ most distinctly has a shape).
And then it starts to rain. At first fragile - as if the small droplets take offense at the ground they so daintily caress. And then suddenly it is heavy, angsty striking the plastic chairs spread across your mother’s patio with rhythmic fervor.
We run with vigor too hungry for our pajama legs and unbrushed teeth to realize, until we reach the awning of your garage I fondly refer to as the barn, and here we are safe.
And… For the first time a moment beside you feels vulgar - I despise my feet for carrying me here. I look up - because now you are taller than me but it was not always this way- and to my surprise you are whistling.
You never whistle.
“If I’m a squirrel then what are you?”
The question erupts from my lips like a mistake- but we both know it’s not.
This is the game I often play in the moments of silence that land between us like lumps of sand. In my head you always tell me that you are a bear, even though I know that you are really an amphibian - like a frog (which is odd because frog sounds like fog). But today I’m unsure, and your real voice might comfort me, so I squack again:
“If I am a squirrel than what are you?
You look deceived.
“I don’t know… Some sort of…” your response lingers which makes me nervous because it is not in your character to linger. In fact I can only recall one other incident (in the third grade) when you lingered in this way : Danny Mundell asked if you had two moms or just one…. and instead of kicking him in the shins (as I would have done) you lingered.
“Some sort of what?” I hasten you trying my best to mask the urgency in my tone- but you catch on quick and linger even longer.
You savor this opportunity to tease me. You suck on it like a blueberry ring pop until finally you nudge me and reply: “a frog, definitely a frog.”
And then it happens. I kiss you- not because of the way you squint when you say frog (like fog) but because I have an instinct - like a piece of ice you drop down my back when I least suspect it- and in this moment I am suddenly sightless.
You are so salty - the way I expect you to be just with a little more pizzazz (like something from a specialty shop- the ones that only sell nuts) – and I am surprised by absolutely nothing.
The kiss lasts for only a moment – which seems more than appropriate since neither one of can stand excessive nonsense. And we just sit – the two of us – under the barn – as I dream of one day writing you this letter.