We’d only just met a few months earlier and I wondered how I ended up in that beat-up old VW with her. We listened to The Wallflowers over and over as we drove up the coast with the windows down, feeling the warm salty air blow through the bus. It was a junker, but to us it was our cottage at the beach, it was our home. It was where we ate, slept, and drank cheap red wine and it was beautiful. Turns out we were meant for each other, not forever and only but for then, for that moment in time.

And when the summer ended, and I headed back to Boston, I knew.

I rented a studio on Beacon Hill and got a job at a sign shop down in the South end. I couldn’t stand her eyes in mine any longer, so I just chose to forget, it was easier that way. I starting drinking my coffee black after that, adding sugar reminded me too much of Summer, sweet.

I told her that I loved her but I’m not sure that I did. I don’t think she loved me either but she loved us, which was good enough for her and for me. Good enough for Summer.