When the geese calls echo overhead and the dry grass bends with the wind and the sky is as sharp as a crystal and the color of his eyes, then it will be over and so it will end. And as the summer fades, so too will this relationship. And while that in itself isn't unusual or even remotely interesting, it still seems so unfair. I know nothing lasts forever, not even those endless summer days, consistent only in their endless heat. Those days when I break into sweat just getting out of bed and every movement takes an extra effort, as if without exaggeration, the point will be lost. When it's so hot the night brings relief only in lessening the hazy sunlight's glare. Those days of endless phone conversations, one hardly distinguishable from the next, where the voice on the other line talks of the upcoming school year in terms of the past one, and of events last year that were "soooo embarrassing!!" and I sit on my porch watching the waves of heat shimmer and distort the house across the street and I feel removed from all the apparent anguish and distress as the voice then proceeds to bemoan the passing of summer.

I guess perhaps I am removed - I haven't gone to a party in more than a year, why bother, if you annoyed me in school, why won't you at a party? And I guess my summer is removed then, too, my summer of heat, the dry brown grass, the hazy pink night sky, the dirty candy wrappers left from over-tired tourists, the feel of soft ice cream melting down my fingers, the scent of beach roses, the snarls in my hair from biking or running, the too-warm water of a pond in August, the calluses on the bottom of my feet, and of course, this summer at least, the endless anticipation for his calls, the frantic preparations preceding his visits and the constant upheaval of emotions when I'm with him. How can I expect anyone else to understand that? How can I be so naive as to believe someone won't?

And though this relationship won't end because of what someone said someone else said, or because of what someone did or didn't do, or because of the lack of communication or even because of unspoken physical demands, end it will with the beginning of September, as we become separated by a hundred-plus miles. He will go off to a whole new world, far from the past, and I will return to two more years in a high school I already dislike. And though I desperately want to believe otherwise, the ending is certain. All around me are the signs of completion, of a cycle, yet again, concluded. From the way the sky colors at twilight, to the colors on the tips of the trees, to the geese that have begun flying in their v-shaped formations overhead; all is ending for now. And despite the joys of spring and summer, autumn will once again be a lonely season, full of memories and empty dreams blowing and dancing with the leaves. And once again I will walk the leaf-covered paths alone, and collect the final wildflowers from a faded summer alone, and face the everyday difficulties of life alone, made all the worse for having once been faced together.

But I will remain strong, and my strength will be built upon my loneliness. I will walk in and out of crowds alone, I will laugh and cry alone, I will face victory and defeat alone and I will stay strong; my cries for help will remain unspoken and my feelings will be known to me alone. And when I have accepted it, when the hurt doesn't pulse over me in waves of sorrow, when I can think of him without sadness, then and only then will I know if it truly is better to have, "loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." n