67 Days After
Sidney
I flinch every time I walk into my dorm room.
And that should be a bad thing, but actually it feels strangely comforting.
Like slipping on an old pair of pajamas.
The ratty kind that are ugly and worn, but make you feel nostalgic.
In the shower, I wish and pray that I’ll be soaked by cherry Kool-Aid.
That my slippers will mysteriously be filled with tapioca pudding, or glued to the floor.
But day after day, things in my room are uneventful.
It’s a week before I realize that Asher isn’t going to retaliate, and two before I admit to myself that I’ve gone about this all wrong.
I can’t go backward with Asher. There’s no re-creating the past with us.
We aren’t the same people we were when we were freezing each other’s underwear and sabotaging shampoo.
The only thing I can control right now is swimming, so when Ellie gets home from classes we go on a run before dinner.
After dinner, we eat our weight in ice cream, and I tell her all about my summer, and Asher.
It feels good to get it off my chest, and the next time I get in the pool, I feel a little bit lighter, and a whole lot more like myself.