As the summer rose in splendour out of the bleak rains of the previous month, and as it passed onwards into autumn, oblivious, I loved a girl called Sarah, madly, as we lay silently beneath the shifting stars. Mick was the one who kissed her.
As a group, we spent the evenings sipping miniature bottles of French beer in lemon scented candlelight, or hanging ape-like from a splintering wooden climbing frame made for kids half our age, or laying back restlessly on prickling tartan rugs, to the braying of sheep and spectacle of shooting stars bursting through the clear night sky. Looking back, those evenings were the best of my life.
I didn’t mind the mosquito bites, my frame close to my beloved Sarah whilst Mick caressed her face with his large, man-like hands. It was a strange love, my heart beating for her, imagining my lips in place when I heard her kiss him back. Numbly, I stood up and stretched, walking away from them to the swarming pond nearby, where a handful of golden carp and slimy tench dreamed away in the depths. On the brim of their murky ocean I wept seawater, and let the diving parasites drain the blood from my skin: blood that seemed to be shed from my heart. They both asked me what was wrong but I never told and instead took her younger sister Lauren for a walk, leaving them to the separateness lovers desire.
Lauren held my hand as we walked that night through lush fields where cows grazed with mellow, accepting eyes. Ours was innocence. The calm before the fall. Her long, cool fingers wrapped around my warm palm, then the laughter and panic as we stumbled across a lone bull and ran together to safety behind the rusting gate. Our eyes met. We smiled, then looked away.
Sometimes I think of my image of Lauren now, of how beautiful she was, with the warming sun glistening on her bathing costume during our long hours by the swimming pool, and those long, full curls of deep auburn hair; those clear green eyes and full lips, awakening to the prospect of being kissed. Then I was scared of admitting that I liked her, even to myself. Now I just twist a smile in acceptance of an opportunity long missed.