I Remember Everything: My Summer of Love

Summer love...

I remember wondering why I hadn’t heard from my girlfriend, and then there she was, pretty as you like, and probably off to sew a coat for that wintry conscience of hers. It felt particularly cold for a July morning. For the previous two weeks I’d fought to and fro with polar-halves of the same person, a dichotomy which true-enough my friends had warned me of. But like an awe-struck romantic I locked them in the cupboard and accidentally ‘lost’ the key.

Until then everything seemed to fit neatly under that bannered cliché of the ‘summer of love’; the sky a sapphire blue, optimism at an all-time high and romance was literally a kiss away. Me being me, it took pains to pluck up the courage to actually ask this girl out in the first place – 3 weeks of ‘she really likes you, just do it’ and the emergence of ‘competition’ finally forced to go for it, and you know what she said? ‘Yes’, she said ‘yes’. Cursed revision provided an adequate distraction as I went over our first date inside my head – what to say, what to wear, and all the other refinements which are of such importance. The evening before I sat in apprehension when, somewhat intrusively, she invited herself round to ‘watch a film’. Not that I minded of course, and soon there she stood in my doorway wearing a syrupy golden smile and speaking tongues so warm my insides started to melt. Suddenly my worries about the following evening had vanished, we must have laid in hushed-tones for hours, and all the while the words of Jim Morrison emanated from my speakers. My hair hung in coiled rings, and she seemed to take great pleasure in running her fingers through it. All of a sudden, my worries about the following night vanished, and the tension as we said goodnight – whilst almost unbearable – was quickly diffused. I’ll leave it at that.

So the following evening presented itself, I’d had a good day, what the morning revision session broken up nicely with orange suns and Brown’s sandwiches. I pulled on my tightest black jeans, masterfully applied my eyeliner and an appropriately psychedelic shirt and doused myself in patchouli – I really enjoyed that. Having made my way to wait for our taxi, I remember kicking myself several times as she I watched her make her way over. In the restaurant, having pretended – perhaps unconvincingly – to be a wine connoisseur, my steak came well-done and lovingly presented, yet her risotto looked somewhat more appealing. We indulged in each others’ conversation to all ends; some whimsical tale about the previous summer and soon we held hands across the table as in one of those awfully romantic American movies. My cheesecake desert went down rather nicely, although I had to pinch myself when the bill came around. We interrupted our walk back, detouring up to sit at Clifford’s Tower. We huddled close to watch the burning sunset, pouring through the skylight like custard and apricots. I remember making meaningless small-talk as the rays illuminated our faces and all was right with the word at the moment.

The next few weeks sustained a mostly blissful feeling but already cracks were starting to show, all of a sudden the skeletons I’d been warned of were beginning to limp from out of the closet, frequent bouts of ‘I’m not right for you’ and ‘it’s not fair on you, you deserve more’ seemed to checker my days and ‘I didn’t mean it’ and ‘I really do…think I love you’ coloured my nights. The end of term came and went and I’d heard nothing, not even a goodbye. My phone was silent for weeks when, at some point in August, I received a message. She’d met someone else, and so ended the summer of love, and I plunged to a long and bitter winter of discontent. Some might say I never really got out of it, and I never really got the closure I needed. But the bright elation I felt for those precious few weeks, I remember that.

Add Comment

You must log in to submit a comment.