'Clouds in the Summer'

Reading Music

I promise I stopped searching for you, and I promise I’m not trying to pull you back to me. You left me in the dust, and for good reason, but a string on my heart still hurts whenever I try to yank it. The gravity of my house is different now that the empty air feels so heavy.

Leaving you with this is unusual for me.

I can assure you, I have changed from the last time you observed my failures. What happened in the past doesn’t bother me anymore, but the thought of being confronted by it intimidates me. The burning necessity of closure faded for me like it faded for the rest of our generation.

When you called me at work, I stepped away to the outdoor area by the vending machine like I had to answer it. You said it was my favorite kind of cloudy day and that you wanted to drive through the road I took into town. I had been talking to you about how I kept trying to take pictures of it, but the camera wasn’t capturing what I was seeing at the top of the hill.

You drove up and down the road for me until it was too dark to see anything, and then we stopped in that empty parking lot to watch the rain. I said I captured a lot of beautiful pictures within the seconds the car moved through the top, but I needed to stop trying to save such a perfect moment. While you were gazing out enjoying the weather, I wanted to save the raindrops on the passenger window, and it worked too well.

I kept this picture with me for years. I would let it disappear to the bottom of my bag, and then I would hold it for a long time when I saw it again. Every raindrop played a montage of the happiest and saddest skipping flashbacks.

That's why I have to let it go.

I couldn't react to you in the same way I reacted to other people. Your eyes outweighed all of the dealbreakers. If you wanted me to believe in something for you, I would've believed it. I think I was really in love with the songs I was listening to and the movies I was watching, and the things I wanted to write about. I loved you- I did- and it was fun, but I know how to open my heart to the fullness of time.

When you went away, I found myself writing letters to you that I didn't want you to read. By the time I was done, I thought about throwing them away or leaving them in random places around the city. I couldn't bring myself to burn them, shred them, or watch the paper and ink disintegrate in water. I think they all add up to the same story- I loved something you brought out in me, and I loved it until it was reckless.

I’ve been thrust into a new direction now, where new raindrops will keep knocking against my window to bring me back from the pain of losing what I never had.

So with these letters, you might want to store them away, not to be opened for years, or you might have an easier time getting rid of them.

The mountainous road stands ahead like a frozen tidal wave. Harmony had previously considered saying goodbye, but Oakley would not have wanted her to stop over anyhow. She no longer had the time nor the will to contemplate his whereabouts. It seemed like yesterday and an entire lifetime had passed all at once. A disastrous twenty-first birthday would forever be his last memory of her. It was the night she vowed to never throw another party again. Birthdays to graduations to holidays kept her from thinking bringing people together was a good idea.

She admires the view of the city at the peak of the desert road for the last time before the lengthy drive along Highway 101 to Cannon Beach, Oregon.

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