Six Summers to Fall

by C.W. Farnsworth

I inhale deeply, trying to suffuse my lungs with the scent of Port Haven, Maine. It’s a melancholy smell. Sunny days and stormy nights. Easy flirting and unrequited crushes. Happiness and heartbreak. All mixed with pine and pure oxygen.

I feel his smile everywhere. It douses me as effectively as the water falling from the sky did, charged awareness skittering across the surface of my skin.

Love enhances other emotions—for better or for worse.

Suddenly, the sun feels a thousand times hotter, especially once he drops his shirt and fixes me with his unwavering attention.

“Just shut up and ski, Sunshine.”

those blue eyes are dancing. I can make out every single fleck of color—navy and cyan and sapphire. Filled with excitement and delight,

Snags on the two dimples above Harper’s ass and ends with me paddling even faster, like I’ll manage to get closer to them.

And I somehow just know, the way I know my name and that Dr. Pepper is superior to other sodas and the right second to shoot the puck, that Harper Williams beaming at me while sitting in a canoe is a sight I’ll never forget.

“It’s a tragedy, Harper. And tragedies never make any sense. They’re just weights we have to live with.”

But kissing on a mountain in the middle of the day is not usually part of a random hookup. This would be something else entirely.

We sit like that, holding hands, for the rest of lunch.

But avoiding the past isn’t healthy either. You should do whatever feels right. If that includes revisiting the past, then do it. That doesn’t mean you’re stuck there.”

He somehow manages to pierce past the ordinary and the mundane, hitting exactly what I need to hear like an arrow finding the precise center of a target.

“Fuck,”

“You’re perfect.”

“Staring at it isn’t going to help, Sunshine.”

I want to shake his ease, to get a glimpse of everything beneath. To know him, not just the famous hockey player or the teenager who lived next door. And I want him to know me.

“She’s stubborn. Feisty. Determined. The most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.”

“Whatcha doing, Halifax?” I feel the smile spread across my face before I register any amusement. It’s an involuntary, pleasant reaction. Every time I look at her, I feel like smiling. “Just enjoying the view,” I reply.

Something tightens in my chest as she pulses against my hand, urging me on, and I realize it’s for me. That she’s reacting like this for me. And just like that, my restraint thins to nothing. I’m a little wild. A lot reckless.

It feels as if we’d never done this before. Like everything is new and unexplored. Uncertain and exciting. It also feels effortless. Right, like this was always meant to happen. The way the moon has phases and the ocean tides change.

“Don’t threaten me with a good time, Halifax. I’ll expect you to deliver.”

I also want this. Listening to her hum in the bathroom. Talking to her. Being around her. Soaking up her presence that, no matter what she says, feels like my personal brand of sunshine.

my attention drawn to her like the insects buzzing around the lights strung up. Like how a painter narrows in on a muse or a writer searches for a word.

My heart takes off at the speed of a gallop. As fast as the glide of skates carving ice.

I’m so fucking attracted to you, I have to think about sweaty socks baking in the sun.”

“I like you in my jersey,”

“I want to fuck you while you’re wearing my jersey.”

“You want to know some truths, Harper Williams? I’ve never fucked a woman wearing my jersey—never even cared if she wore it. Do you know what else I’ve never done? Never taken a girl to dinner with my parents. Never spent two hours agonizing over a single text. Never slept in the same bed for a week. I’m in this, Harper.”

“You look incredible in anything you wear, Harper. But

“In this, you look like mine.”

“I only called you Sunshine ironically once,”

“Every other time, it’s been because that’s how I feel around you. Bright and happy. Being around you makes me so fucking happy, Harper.”

“I’m falling in love ...

“Good. I’ve been falling for a while, baby.”

“Fuck me, Halifax. Or I’ll take care of things myself.”

“I think you went through a hell no one should ever have to experience. I think even anyone who’s never been hurt is scared of loving and losing. I think that you can be strong and independent and also rely on someone else. And…I think that you’ve picked guys you knew you wouldn’t fall for—until Drew Halifax showed up like a knight in hockey pads. Maybe it won’t work out. But if you don’t try, it definitely won’t work out.”

I smile at the sight of her sitting in my kitchen, wearing my shirt. Part of me can’t believe she’s here.

“I fell in love with you during your dance routine to that Spice Girls song,”

“And then again, when I saw you in that pink bikini. When you dropped that lime. When we kissed for the first time. When you caught that fish. When we danced at Amelia’s wedding. When you showed up at my game, wearing my jersey. And I’ll fall in love with you a thousand more times.”

It took us six summers to fall. And at the end was this. A lifetime of love.