Lilly
1. I lock up and unlock my bike, fingers clicking through the numbers, the sun in a vastly different place in the sky each time. The total number of words I say at work is few: “Hello, what can I do for you?” “What size would you like?” “Your total is…and here’s your change.” It’s repetitive and exhausting. I’m not bad at it—talking to the customers—but some of my coworkers seem to disappear when I’m on shift, vanishing into the back room and leaving me helpless at the front. Food and drink orders blink accusingly at me from my register. In front of me, so do the customers. A few days later, one of my coworkers confronts me. “You were too slow on Monday,” she says. It takes me a moment to remember what even happened on Monday. It’s all one big blur. I don’t say anything beyond a monotone “Thank you for your feedback,” but a little part of me resents it all. She could have helped. She knows I’m not in a position to ask for it. But I am almost done.
2. I leave for college in one month. Almost exactly. My room is not clean and bags not packed and supplies not acquired but dammit, it’s happening! Today I hugged my brother goodbye for what could be the last time until winter break. Every passing day is one less until I am on my own. And I can’t wait for it. I am ready to test my independence. I have learned a lot this summer.
3. But I miss learning. My best friend is teaching herself the Arabic alphabet and she shows me how some of the characters are written, how they’re strung together. “I don’t know many words yet, but I can at least sound them out when I see them written,” she says. She writes the word for “morning” on the page and it comes so naturally to her, or it seems to, I don’t know what kind of hard work she’s putting in behind the scenes, of course, but there is something about her learning that seems to be instinctive. I envy that. I have felt that way myself a few times before but not in a while.
4. I love all of my friends so deeply and I’m doing a terrible job of showing them that. I get home in the evenings and sleep, or read, or lie in bed and stare at the ceiling, notifications on my phone turned off. I don’t blame them when the frequency of their texts diminishes. It’s so simple—just text them back, Lilly, I swear to god!—but even that tiny, attainable level of interaction seems to be nothing if not impossible.