Second Chance Summer

by Morgan Matson

Hearing him now—and the way we were sniping at each other—felt like speaking a foreign language with someone you’d only ever spoken English to.

I was imbuing this wish with as much hope in the outcome as the ones I’d made when I was little,

“We’ll say . . . all the things that we need to say.”

And I’d sign his birthday and Father’s Day card every year with a scrawled love, Taylor. But had I ever said it to him? Out loud, and in recent memory?

a refrain about how there will be time, time for you and time for me.

I looked out at the water, I realized there was nowhere to go, nowhere left to run. And I just had to stay here, facing this terrible truth. I felt, as more tears fell, just how tired I was, a tiredness that had nothing to do with the hour. I was tired of running from this, tired of not telling people, tired of not talking about it, tired of pretending that things were okay when they had never, ever been less okay.

it was a kiss that was both familiar and brand-new, making me remember a kiss from five years ago, and making me feel like I’d never been kissed before in my life.

And now that I knew that the time we had together was limited, I was holding on to it, trying to stretch it out, all the while wishing I’d appreciated what I’d had earlier.

Mostly, I just wanted to feel his arms around me, solid and true, while I tried to shut out the feelings that were hurting my heart with a thousand tiny pinpricks, which was somehow worse than having it broken all at once.

would sit with me while I looked up at the stars, needing to see something fixed and permanent while everything else in my life seemed to be breaking apart.