A Summer of What-Ifs

Summer Holidays should feel like unlimited potential, like anything could happen now that one has the freedom to chase their dreams.

So far, this summer has felt like the Summer of What-Ifs. A Summer of Missed Opportunities and Lost Chances and Broken Fantasies.

We'd planned to take the first week slow, my friends and I. Sleep late every day, relax, maybe get the summer homework out of the way early, if we felt like it. Recover from the stress of final exams and start thinking of what we wanted to do together for the rest of the holidays.

Of course, the best-laid plans of mice and men...

The first day of summer holidays started in the pre-dawn hours. The ass-crack of dawn, as my father put it.

Given our position on the globe, during summer, dawn was around 5 in the morning. No one's favourite time to be woken by an almighty crash caused by the trellis below my older brother's window detaching from the wall under his weight as he tried to sneak back in without waking anyone up.

Anyone who managed to sleep through the fall of the trellis, and my brother screaming, got woken up by my parents shouting at him on the lawn. It was difficult to tell what they were more angry about; breaking his new curfew on the first day of having it, breaking the trellis in an attempt to conceal breaking curfew, or that he'd come home drunk. My brother's attempt to defend himself did not help.

"Why didn't you just let yourself in? You have a spare set of keys for a reason!"

"..."

"Well? Where are your keys?"

"I don't know!"

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"We were doing that thinkg where everyone puts their keys in a big bowl, and I couldn't find mine afterward. Or I might have dropped them somewhere on the way home. I'm not sure."

"WHAT???"

Then we discovered that one of the neighbors, abruptly woken to what they were convinced was a violent burglary or domestic dispute, had called the police.

No one was going back to sleep after that, even if I really, really wanted to.

Obviously, not much relaxing happened the first week, what with my brother walking on eggshells and my parents fuming all over the place.

The second week, a sudden change in the weather meant bucketing rain for seven days straight, a flood warning for the low-lying areas, and pretty much everyone confined to their homes, with parents reluctant to even drive us to visit each other.

Most of the third week was grumbling quietly to ourselves as we helped repair any water damage, until it was finally dry enough to be allowed to resume normal activities.

The fourth week, just about everyone came down with weather-related sniffles. Not contagious or life-threatening, but in a post-COVID world, no one was taking chances. We video-called each other from our beds, drank our bodyweight in lemon and honey water, and complained about being halfway through summer while having barely seen each other.

The fifth week, we managed to co-ordinate to see a movie one day, go to the pool another, and meet up at various parks a few times. Never all at once, but after so long apart, just getting to hug each other and spend time together felt like a blessing.

Especially after the sixth week, when Sarah caught Brad cheating on her with Molly, and the resulting screaming fest blew up the entire friend group.

"I can't believe you! I can't believe I ever thought we were friends! He's not even that good of a kisser!"

"Oooh, ice for that burn?"

"Sssh, don't draw attention!"

"I told you I liked him, but you still said yes when he asked you out?"

"What was I supposed to say, with half the school watching? You could have said it bothered you, instead of sneaking around behind my back!"

"Look, Sarah, it was a crappy thing to do, but can the rest of us just stay out of it?"

"Why, did you know and not tell me?"

Needless to say, the friendship fallout was not an amiable one. Even if it was just Brad and Molly that got kicked out of the group, Sarah wasn't in a mood to socialise like nothing had happened. As much as we sympathised and tried to be good friends, there's a limit to how long any one person can spend listening to another alternate between rage and tears without dreaming about telling them to kick-start the moving on process.

The start of week eight was when we all hit our limit. Summer Holidays were nearly over, and while we all agreed that Brad and Molly were jerks, it wasn't all-consuming for us like it was for Sarah.

On the final day of the summer holidays, after our parents had dragged us shopping for school supplies and badgered us about homework and we'd finally escaped for one last day of freedom, we went to the beach. Burgers and Fish and Chips, precariously balanced on a towel on the flattest bit of sand we could find. I leaned against the nearest body, and enjoyed our time while it lasted.

Somehow, a series of life emergencies while we all tried to find a rare day to meet up all together as time flew past, seemed very prophetic of our futures...