Exits and Entrances

I dreamt of the one and only summertime, in which we renamed the summer “kids in love” and blared the Mayday Parade equivalent and valiantly did the dumbest things we could think of.

Towards the beginning, right when the twins graduated (doesn’t it seem like so much longer ago?) you had slept through breakfast, and Danny was not happy with having to sit through two hours of Caroline and I talking about our shopping trip later in the day. So, we barged into your room, Danny telling me I had to tease you.

But I don’t remember what I did. I just remember the picture of me you had on your bedside table, one I had never seen before. You had your arms around my waist, wearing my favorite shirt of yours, and you and I were just looking at each other, Tommy, but there was something in that look. We looked like we were in love. My lips were curled into a slight smile, and you looked like you were going to fall in love with me in an instant.

I dreamt of later that summer as well, when my parents let Caroline and I borrow the beat up Mustang to go to Hampton, and you, Danny, and Tyler met us up there. It was bright and sunny, reflected off all our sunglasses and the sand was hot beneath out feet, the tide carrying us into its cold depths like the summer was meant to. The beach was deserted, which made you and Tyler think it was okay to try to do backflips.

You ate shit in the sand in front of a four year old and two teenage girls with smart phones. You were always an idiot, Tommy. But I still always loved you.

If I recall, Danny bet Caroline she wouldn’t get her belly button pierced, and the two of us walked out with new piercings: Caroline’s in her belly button (which she still has, believe it or not), and mine in my cartilage, still hide able beneath my long waves of hair.

I dreamt of the end of that summer as well, where we spent working the lifeguard shift because we had to do community service for college transcripts, but we weren’t too worried. We were only sophomores.

There was something about that summer that really changed everything. It was the last summer we had that was free of all responsibility. I mean, the next summer you had a job as a lifeguard with girls checking you out everyday (to which, I’m told, you showed them pictures of me and how much you loved me), while I worked at a summer camp with kids old enough to know that crayons belong on paper and not in their noses.

That was the last summer where things made sense, where everything was spelled out in stone, that it was or it wasn’t. There was no in-between and all this bullshit drama that no one wanted. Everything was so much simpler, like the world wanted us to have one more great time before things got real. Before we grew up.

Because that’s what we did, wasn’t it, Tommy? We grew up. At least, that’s what I’m hoping happened. Otherwise, I have no explanation, no reason to believe in anything else I’ve become accustomed to these past months.

You weren’t exactly the best person to talk about God or a higher being with, since you were a firm and solid Atheist with nothing to prove except that a higher being wasn’t needed to create the universe (which I understand, Tommy, I’m not an idiot). My dad was a diehard Catholic, my mother was unreligious. I grew up with my dad, since my mom worked days and my dad worked nights. But you knew that.

You knew I went to church with my dad every Sunday and you even offered to go once with me, because you knew what it meant to me.

But when God or whoever took you away from me, I almost stopped believing. Someone as perfect for me as you were, Tommy? Why would anyone wish for that to be taken away?

Maybe I’m starting to see it. You wouldn’t have stuck around during all this madness with Joe. You would have either been just as broken, or would have gotten sick of all my Heaven talk and my dad’s Hell talk. I will admit, it does get really annoying sometimes, but I guess that’s just a part of me, like the cross around Joe’s neck was a part of him, before it was blown to bits.

Which sucked, might I add.

Something about being with someone scared me, though, all God and theology aside. Maybe it was the fact that everyone close to me had left me (even you, Tommy), or maybe it was the fact that when I was a freshmen, my best friends since I moved here left me for some stupid reason.

It was the reason that the first time you ever took me on a date, I told you to not fall in love, there’s just too much to lose. I meant that. I meant what I said every time I spoke to you except for the last time. I said some really freaking awful things to you the last time we really spoke, and I wanted you to know, there were only two small grains of truth in that entire time period where we screamed and yelled at each other like five years olds.

One, that I really did put all my faith into you, and that everything following that moment would be my long winded apology to both myself and to you. And two, that I really did love you with all my heart and soul to the point where it hurt to breathe without you by my side.

It’s almost pathetic, really. How dependent I was on you, and how dependent I still am. It’s like something about you made me latch on and not want to let go.

All my dreams turned to nightmares. Even you, Tommy.