Every word that he spoke dripped from his tongue like a melting popsicle as I was left to try and mop up the puddle. He was a 1000-piece puzzle, a puzzle I convinced myself I could single-handedly solve. And even though his eyes were dark brown they still lit up the dark like fireflies on all the cool August nights we spent on my front porch. Doing 75 miles down Concord Pike at one in the morning in his mom's car, the only thing I was afraid of was losing that feeling. The feeling of the blood warming beneath my cheeks and my fingers adjusting themselves subconsciously to fit flawlessly into his.

 

But he was a summer boy. And all of the late nights and the tan skin and the fireworks erupting inside of me that mimicked the ones in the sky...weren't meant to make it to fall. It got too cold for his arms alone to keep me warm, and as I shed my flip flops and shorts for sweaters and boots, he too shed me to prepare for the season's change.  And like the dying brown leaves outside, I clung to the thin branches of his heart. But the heavens let out a sigh in the form of a tiny gust of wind and I fell. Slowly and gently, I hit the ground, and shriveled.

 

And while I was on the ground I did a lot of things. I yelled. I cried. I ate my feelings. Until one day I realized that I was not a leaf. I am a person, and I am better than that. And then I realized that he was not a tree. He was a person, and he was not better than me.

 

And then it was winter, and it had been 4 weeks since I heard from him. And each day it got a little bit easier, and each day his name crossed my mind less and less. And then yesterday, I didn't think of him once.