I first met Summer some months back, she and I used to go to the same gym. She's the kind of girl everyone notices, tall, lean, and extremely blonde. I'm pretty sure she's the blondest person I've ever seen. Sometimes it even seemed her hair was more golden than blonde, it shone in the truest sense of the word. She was the kind of girl that would just come to the gym, do her thing for an hour or two, and then leave. I've never seen her talking to anyone, though plenty of people certainly tried to talk to her. As for me, well, I did my level best not to notice her - at least in the sense that I wouldn't be caught staring at her or something like that. She was obviously way out of my league, so I stayed well out of her way. But then... then one day I caught her staring at me. Well, at first I thought she was staring past me, maybe some guy had caught her eye and I just so happened to be in her field of vision. I shrugged it away, but soon I saw her coming directly my way. I was on the stationary bike, but I still thought she was just going to talk to someone else. I stare straight ahead, as she approaches, and she stops in front of me and says something i can't understand. Oh god, was my hair sticking up in a weird way and she's here to tell me about my weird hair? Do I have a booger stuck in my face? What, what could it be? I take out my ear buds, and apologize, could she repeat what she said, please?
And she asks me if I was crying. I stop the pedals, and brush of the sweat from my face. Then I look at her - all angelic like, and she looks like summer, and she smells like summer. 'What do you mean?', I ask. Then a pained look comes across her face, as if suddenly she was certain that she had said the wrong thing. She hadn't. I'm still looking at her, trying not to make a fool out of myself. Then I say, 'Yes. Yes, I was. How did you notice?', and now I see her usual self return, warm and bubbly and - yes - summery. She says, 'To be fair I think pretty much everyone here did...', which left me wondering if I had been making faces, or maybe there had been loud sobbing. 'What I mean to say', she added, laying a hand on top of mine, it's driving me crazy, absolutely crazy, I've never felt skin so soft before, I am entirely certain I shall never wash that hand again, 'is that you have an aura about you. Like there's a deep sadness inside, and sometimes it comes out and you just... cry?' And she wasn't wrong, I found out early on when I started to come to the gym, that me profusely sweating could mask the tears. Ah, the faculties of a broken heart. It takes a long time to heal. And I healed... this way. Well, this way too. And so I explained to her why, indeed, she was right, I was crying. I'm off the bike by now, and I'm standing close to her. That smell is killing me. I feel like I smell like a rotting donkey, and she smells of heaven. And then she asks me why I was crying, why I cry, and I shake my head and tell her that it's a long story. She says she understands, then says 'My name's Summer', and of course it is. Why would it be anything else? I stutter momentarily, nervous, anxious, why? 'I-I.. My name's Nathaniel. Nathan. Nate. Just.. just Nate.'
Then I don't see her for a while, for a few weeks at least. I thought she'd left the gym, or started coming at a different time so she could avoid me - whatever. I found myself going at different times as well, but I never caught sight of her. And then she's there again. Of course I think she won't remember me, of course I think it was just a one-off conversation we'd had. But she sees me, and waves at me, all smiles. Again, I see her walking my away, again, I feel that burning imposter syndrome because it can't be me she's coming over to talk to, it has to be someone else. But it's, it's me. 'Just Nate', she says, laughing. 'How have you been?', and I tell her I'm good, and I ask her if something had happened to her, because I hadn't seen her around. She cocks her head, and smiles, then says 'Why? Were you worried about me?', and the truth is yes, yes I was. I tell her just that. Why is she being so nice to me? Again she places her hand of me, I don't want her to ever take it off. She has this constant smile on her face, so much so that the corners of her mouth have turned up, incising her smile even further in her face. She's taking out her phone, and then she says, 'Here, give me your number.' I blurt it out, as if in a fever dream. She gives me her number too. Tells me to call her later today. I can't speak, words are dying before they can be formed. Call me, she said, call me, she repeated. I said I would. I did. I called her.
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