Lilly

1. I forget that I have to turn in a proposal for my cultural history research paper in two days. I’ve had my topic for months, but my cursor winks malevolently at me from an empty page, dim and chilling on my laptop screen. My phone is turned off and an extension on my browser blacklists any websites that might distract me and I tell myself, Concentrate, concentrate! But it doesn’t come. I start putting together sources instead. The proposal isn’t worth that much of my grade. I’ll write it tomorrow.

2. I catch myself grinding my teeth. It’s rare. Sometimes I’ll wake up with my jaw clenched and it actually takes a moment to ease out of it. For some reason it won’t be sore later, but the rest of me will be, no matter how little our coach makes us run at soccer practice.

3. We’ve won two games and lost one. Scored 10 goals and conceded nine; not the best average. But we are exhausted and no one knows why. At the end of practice one day, our coach stops us mid-scrimmage and we all fall over each other, the cold air twists tight around our lungs. “Get on the line,” he says. We haven’t been satisfactory. I sprint faster than I have all week, chest heaving, stomach full of misdirected anger. I can’t tell if it’s at him or at myself or at all of us or at no one, but I don’t care, not as long as it keeps my heart beating and my legs working.

4. I pass a Calculus test. I sit in the corner and write furiously while the rest of my class retakes it.

5. I count the days on my fingers. Graduation is on a Sunday, but us seniors will hardly be at school the previous week. Our class officers send out information about the annual senior trip and one of my friends texts me, “Are you going?” I’m not. But I wasn’t expecting anyone to care if I was. I reconsider. My parents offer to split the cost. It’s a good deal, they say. You’ll earn plenty working this summer.

6. Over spring break I went kitesurfing. Kites I am decent with; surfing I am not. The instructor complimented the smoothness of my flights and then laughed when I wiped out repeatedly on the board. But it wasn’t cruel. I laughed along, self-deprecating, raring to try again. Eventually the wind died. We took the jet ski back to shore. I was peeling myself out of my wetsuit when my mom said, “Are you bleeding?” I’d lost all the skin off my knuckles and a horrendous red bruise was in full, colorful bloom on my right knee. But I was still laughing, raking a hand through my salty hair. “I’m fine,” I told her.

7. Sometimes it is still hard to focus, and sometimes I look in the mirror and it takes me a moment to recognize the person looking back at me. I meet their eyes and I am confused for a split second—and then it passes. I have the whole summer, I tell myself. Months to figure out who I am and who I’m going to be. Next year will be a fresh start, if I make it one. ♦