The Summer Bucket List

Chapter 8

It’s Baked Mac n Cheese Day!

Caden and I are here at Marie’s house for list number 7. Marie agreed to cook us the dish, since hers was my favorite. We are currently helping her cook the dish. Good thing August left the house early in the morning for work, so there would be no distractions and awkward energy surrounding the house.

“Here you go, dear,” Marie said as she placed the Mac n cheese at the dining table on the back porch. We decided to eat outside because the wind outside is refreshing.

“Thank you, Marie,” I said, smiling widely. “Thank You.” Caden followed.

“Welcome. I’ll leave you two then,” Marie said.

“Wait, aren’t you going to eat with us?” I said.

“I’ll eat later.” She said. “Okay.”

I looked at the dish in front of us. They look like a restaurant quality dish.

“This is my favorite,” I said. “It looks obvious,” Caden answered.

We started eating.

“Mhhmm... Now I know why this is your favorite,” Caden uttered.

“Did you know they have restaurant in town?” he asked. I was surprised.

“They have? I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, I was always there. And they’re one of the best restaurants I’ve been.”

“They sure did,” I said, then smiled.

Then suddenly, a well-known voice flew inside the house. My sight swiftly turned on the door. It wasn’t even cut in seconds our eyes met. It was August. I stood up. I don’t know, but when he’s here, I’m not in control of my body, it’s as if my organ has its own brain.

“August. Hi.” I gave him an embarrassed smile.

Caden also smiled. A quite pretending smile. That unexpected moment is filled with tension as if they were fighting through their gazes. Then he left, just like that.

Caden didn’t speak another word after that encounter. It was just a minute of contact, but it feels like there’s so much that happened that I’m not well aware of, and it’s bothering me.

August’s POV

Farah is back!

It's the exact sentence I want to hear every summer.

My best friend is finally back!

Those three words send me so much joy and excitement just by hearing them. But as years passed, the bliss feeling from those three words slowly fades. Sixteen years had passed. Sixteen years of waiting. Sixteen years of torture. I wrote her 365 letters years ago, but I never received any response from her. I searched for her in California, but I didn’t find her. I don’t know what happened to her, no one knows.

She left without a goodbye; that’s the only f****d-up truth I know.

And that’s the most painful thing, the hardest goodbye that you never anticipated.

She left a wound that will never feel better. She left thousands of questions in my head, haunting me. They say ‘some things are better left unanswered.’ It’s not true, because whatever you do, those unanswered questions could somehow sneak into your mind, torturing you with opinions and false hope. You will never live with peace. You will never live with clarity. It’s tattooed on your head, and the worst part is, it plants hatred.

I hate her for making summers my nightmare.

I literally tried everything to forget about her, as if she didn’t exist in my life, in my past, and as if she wasn’t my core. I tried everything to escape from this grief and pain. But apparently, missing her became part of my routine. Sixteen years have passed, and yet I’m still stuck onto an eight-year-old version of me, who’s waiting for her to come back.

And now she did, back in Morehead City like nothing happened. Seeing her for the first time in decades, I felt a slight feeling of joy, but when I saw the ring on her finger, coldness ran around my vein and hatred was the source. She’s engaged. I just stood there contemplating thousands of words in my head, but I ended up pushing her away, because that wreathful moment dawned me. I f****d up.

Seeing her finger tied up on her silver diamond ring made me realize one thing: I spent almost half of my life hating her. I did hate her, but not as much as I love her.

I didn’t see that coming. It was like a bomb, and I was triggered with a fathomed truth. A flash reality in seconds. I love her enough to feel miserable in her absence. But it scares me that I could never accept this unjustified reality, so I pushed her away. When I saw her doing the summer bucket list, I was furious. And I’m insanely twisted, because, ironically, I was the one who disagreed on doing the Summer Bucket List. I’m mad, perhaps of the fact that it should be us, and it should be me in those moments, not Caden, especially not him.

For days, I was haunted by her. And I couldn’t ignore it any further, so I saved up enough courage to face her. But when I got to her house, I saw Farah and Caden from the window dying with laughter. So, I ceased.

Now I saw them again at my house, but this time it’s hard to pretend I felt nothing. Jealousy poured all over me. Even though my mouth couldn’t say anything, it reflected on my face. I have never felt that emotion in my entire life, not until now.