Chapter 6 + 7

Chapter 6

It’s a very good thing Myo gave me a spare key a long while ago. She said it was for late nights when I couldn’t sleep. I would bike over to her house at 4 am, troubled by nightmares or looming school deadlines, and she’d greet me with a hug and show me the latest additions to her glass art. Then, soothed, I would stay at her house and we’d walk to school together. My mother would drop my bag off at the school.

The kids at school swore we were dating. Until Myo turned her gaze to them, of course. Then they would stammer and look away. I always wondered what exactly she did to warrant such a reaction from everybody. They all avoided her like the plague.

The door opens without a sound. I shut it quietly behind me, casting the hallway in darkness. I blindly grope for the light switch, finding it almost immediately. Up a flight of stairs, left, down the hall, and the door on the left. 

Myo’s room.

I knock. 

No response. 

“I’m coming in.” I softly call through the door. 

No response. 

I gently opened the door.

Chapter 7

“Clo! Clo!” Myo called. It was summer; the air was hot and dry, the sky bright, clear, and blue as if it had never known of clouds and would never know of them again. The grass was baked into dry, itchy stalks, scratching at our ankles as we ran through the spotted shade beneath the trees. There was a persistent buzz of insects and a crowd of birds above us.

The shade was blurred as I ran, alternating between gold and gray. Myo’s back was patterned with the shadows of the leaves above us, though she glanced back occasionally, leaving golden specks trailing across her face.

“Clo! Come on! They’re gonna open soon!” She shouted, beckoning for me to come closer. Turning her head back ahead left her short, pale hair whirling up behind her. She once told me that her hair was the color of her favorite flower. Every summer, on the first day of July, the pool would finally open after months of sleep beneath the snow and ice. Every summer, without fail, Myo would wake me early and convince me to run with her to make it there right as they opened at 6 am sharp. 

“Wait for me!” I yelled back, my arms pumping the air as I tried to keep up. She just kept getting farther and farther down the path. She couldn’t hear my calls now. 

The pool was a vibrant turquoise. I sat on the boiling, white beach chairs. Balancing on the edge of the seat, trying not to burn myself. Myo, skin flushed in the intense heat, strolled over with her hands occupied. A lemon-lime slushy and mint-chocolate-chip gelato. 

“They didn’t have any strawberry?” I asked her, tasting my icy dessert. It was good. My favorite flavor. She’d remembered. 

“Unfortunately. I’ll do with lemon-lime, though!” Ever cheerful and unbothered by the sweat beading up on her neck, Myo took a long gulp from the thick plastic straw of her drink. 

I felt gross and sweaty. Really gross. It was uncomfortably hot. But I was happy. I was happy, and I was with her, and we were together. She was happy. And I was happy, if she was. 

Can we get another summer just like that? 

It’s time to wake up…