The Summer Wind

We were sitting on my bed. Well, I was sitting at the edge anyway. She was more laying with her head propped against the headboard. She still had her shoes on even though they were on the bed, I thought about saying something, but never did. I guess I just decided it didn’t matter anyway. 

My bedroom could get really hot, and any other day we’d be sweltering. There was only one small window, and I didn’t have a fan or anything, but I guess that day we were fine with it. Sometimes that oven heat just feels good. 

I had never seen her cry, and didn’t know much what to think about it. It was my fault anyway. 

See, I picked up this guitar a few weeks earlier. A cheap little thing, maybe fifty bucks. Nylon strings already on it. Just something to pluck on days I felt down. It usually cheered me up. 

There was this Sufjan song we had listened to a lot lately, so I learned it and thought I’d give you a little surprise. I’m not much of a singer, I am a slight romantic, so I plucked and both her and I were pleasantly surprised. 

I got that singer’s rush, so I played a few other numbers for her. Nothing special. I strummed through Sinatra’s version of The Summer Wind. A light-hearted little thing. Maybe because the way I sang it, or maybe because she had listened to the words for the first time, but she started to cry. 

Her face really gave it away, too. Hair in the eyes, but a chin trembling like a thousand winter days. Cheeks red, nose like a rabbit. 

Anyway, I kept apologizing. “It’s not you,” she said, “It was the song.”

As she saw it, the lyrics were reminding her that you can’t stop time. This summer would come and go, and autumn would pass, start all over again. 

“Like painted kites those days and nights. They went flying by.” 

“You can’t stop it.” she said, “It’s just hopeless."

It’s really the moment that I saw our relationship slip from my hands. It lasted months after, but she was never the same. She cried a lot after that. She really couldn’t help but see the meaninglessness of it all. Everything. 

We had got tattoos that same day. And neither of us realized that the ink from a fresh tattoo can come off a little. You had got a broken heart on your shoulder. And in the morning, it had stained my pillow.