Your Voice Was The Soundtrack Of My Summer

“PRESENTS!” screamed a giddy Martin, unable to control his excitement.

“Lace! Control your 2 year old before he wets his pants!” Beef yelled at Lacey, and she slapped Martin playfully over the head.

We gathered around the table, surrounding the pyramid of presents, mostly in tiny boxes, on the coffee table. Martin held out a tiny box wrapped in silver foil paper with tiny hand drawn stars in purple marker.

“I know it looks like it’s from me, but Beef was always the DIY guy,” exclaimed Martin, shooting a look at Beef who glared him down with laser eyes before claiming that he ran out of wrapping paper and Martin said he had extra.

I ripped open the foil paper to reveal a guitar care kit, complete with polish and top of the line gold strings that glinted in the sunlight that streamed from the windows. I turned over the polish in my hand, and examined the strings that I was eager to try on Delilah.

“Wow Beef! I can’t wait to use these!”

“Beefster, you did good man,” Bryan grinned from my left, stealing a look the strings.

“Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” Beef smirked.

“So, you’ll notice their gifts are correlated and they worked hard on this,” Lacey said, handing a box with Bryan’s name on the tag. I curiously held the box in my hand, contemplating what Lacey just said. I shook it near my ear, and loud clanking came from inside. I unlaced the ribbon and carefully opened the box, wondering what could possibly cause the clanking noise.

There were five metallic guitar picks, all in dark hues. I picked the crimson red one to see Martin’s signature laser etched onto the pick. I looked at Bryan in awe, before picking up emerald green one with Bryan’s name laser etched onto it as well.

“No way, this is so cool!” I exclaimed, now examining the dark blue one with Beef’s signature on it. Lacey’s loopy handwriting was on etched on a pale gold pick and just as I expected the dark violet pick had Indigo’s cursive on it with a small inscription of Poolie on the side. She wrapped her long arms around me and kissed my cheek, the scent of night blooming jasmine whipped around my nose as I buried my face in her hair.

“You smell beautiful,” I told her and she laughed at me, her face scrunched up in laughter

“Gee, thanks Bryan,” I finally said and closed the box, carefully placed it beside Beef’s guitar care kit. Bryan shrugged absent-mindedly and handed me a bag with tiny multicolored dinosaurs.

“Guess who this is from,” he said with a sarcastic tone, and all eyes averted towards Martin who was playfully laying kisses on Lacey’s nose. Bryan made an irritated noise in the back of his throat, a noise that only got louder and louder as Martin and Lacey’s growing ignorance of us trying to get their attention.

“Forget it, Martin’s gift was crappy anyway,” Beef said in an unnecessarily high voice.

“Huh? What? My gift crappy? No, never! Lacey helped me out!” he protested after finally breaking away from Lacey.

I reached into the bag and pulled out a DVD case. I looked at the title and a felt a smirk play around my lips and my eyebrow shot way up.

“Really Martin? Really? This is so MANLY,” I exclaimed, Indigo reached for the DVD and nodded approvingly in his direction.

“I haven’t seen this in years, how’d you know he wanted to see this?” she asked, ripping open the plastic.

“I wanted to see this?” I repeated her words incredulously.

“Come on, Paul, it’s a classic,” she pressed, pulling at the tape.

“I don’t know what bothers me more, that I got this as a present, or that Martin gave it to me,” I shook my head in mock dismay. I wasn’t about to betray that I was actually completely intrigued to watch this movie.

“The Notebook,” snorted Bryan and he turned to his sister.

“This is your idea of a boyfriend?” he chortled, Martin gave him a murderous stare.

“I think it’s only adequate that a guy has the knowledge of what a girl really wants, and I just wanted to impart that knowledge on to Paul,” he said airily and Lacey shook her head at him.

“My turn!” she chirped, handing me a large poster sized box in festive wrapping.

I ripped open the wrapper to find a portrait embossed in an ebony frame. The sketch was of us and the band, smiling and making goofy faces. Lacey captured everyone in perfect light, giving Beef a sarcastic smirk, Bryan’s angry eyes toward Martin and Lacey who were kissing and there was Indigo and me sticking out our tongues with laughter on our lips.

“Here’s the photo that I used,” Lacey handed me a miniature photo identical to the sketch she made.

“You never fail to amaze me Lacey,” I smiled up at her and she beamed at me.

“Time for cake!” yelled out my mother and they all scrambled to their feet racing to kitchen, leaving me and Indigo on the couch surrounding the discarded wrapping paper and cards.

“Happy birthday,” she murmured silently and I stroked her cheek lovingly as she looked up into my eyes.

“I love you,” I said.

It did not take any moment’s hesitation for her to answer, with an “I love you too”. She nestled her head into my shoulder and looped her arm through mine and whispered in my ear,

“Do you remember when you took me up to that lighthouse? And when you taught me how to play the guitar? When we sat outside after the wedding in the rain?” she spoke so softly I could barely hear the tremor in her voice.

“Yes, of course,” I nodded, shushing her with my finger but she shook her head adamantly.

“I’m so sorry, if I could wish for anything right now it would be to spend forever with you. I don’t want to go, I met you and I just don’t know what to do anymore. I’m afraid of dying, I’m so afraid,” she trembled, as I held her in my arms but I only let her go on.

“Those were the best times I ever had, and to know I’ll never have them again just kills me. And I thought that this could be the best gift I could ever give you,” she went on and she placed both hands on either side of my cheek and pulled it close to her face.

I was speechless as I felt her scent all over me and breathed in her fear, her anxiety and her love. She pressed her lips against mine and I kissed her back with such vigor that it was all I could do to quell her fear. I felt her tears brush against my cheeks and drop to my nose, and her words echoed in my ears.

Do you remember when you took me up to that lighthouse? And when you taught me how to play the guitar? When we sat outside after the wedding in the rain?

I pulled away from her, enlightened with an idea. She looked at me with sad eyes and I kissed her forehead and told her with a huge grin on my face.

“Don’t ever be afraid, because I’ll always be here for you and that was the best birthday gift I could ever have.”

“No, silly. That’s not all, but I can’t give it to you now. All in due time,” she rose from the couch and we both joined the rest of the crew eating cake around the TV.

-

Alone in my room I ripped pieces of paper the size of fortunes in a fortune cookie. On each strip I wrote about a time Indigo and I spent together, from our first meeting to stealing kisses in each others rooms to our wedding. It was hard to describe in words the days of our summer together in such limited space. There were about 30 strips of paper that I finished when I found only one more empty strip of paper. I took it and racked my brain for anything to put on the last piece. I covered nearly all our adventures in all the other thirty strips. So I decided to write a parting note. It was difficult to fit all what was in my head on the tiny strip, and I was limited to tiny writing. But I smiled as I wrote the last note, watching my teardrops splash onto my desk.

Satisfied, I rolled the final piece of paper into a scroll and wrote the words OPEN LAST at the front. I piled the small scrolls of paper inside a plastic baggie, smiling as I imagined the look on her face as she read each one in solitude in her room.

I hid it under my pillow, and looked outside the window to see the waves roll under the midnight sky. I turned off the lights in my room and crept outside through the back door where the velvet sand met my toes and the tiny crabs scuttled back into their holes. I opened my eyes for conk shells, which needless to say were rare on this beach. Broken pieces of shells and tiny cup shaped shells littered the sand, but every once in a while I spotted a perfect conk shell. The smooth pink inside of the shell and the spiraling design with tiny horns at the top was beautiful and occasional. I placed the first shell I found to my ear and heard the ocean splash through like echoes of faraway waters.

Hours passed when I finally found thirty individual perfect conk shells, spiraled in perfection. I headed back home, glad I could finally collapse onto a bed and succumb to sleep. With nimble fingers that were calloused from metal guitar strings, I was able to put a strip of paper into each conk shell with ease inside the smooth pink of the shell. When I finally rest my head for the day, a blanket of stars were fading into the night as the waning moonlight shed its colors on the dark ocean, unaware of the dangers that the future would inevitably bring, and welcoming the bare outline of a sun with its scarlet colors bleeding into the horizon.