She was right. Summer is crazy. It’s too hot, too fast, too bright. It ends too soon.
The thunderstorm.
This is the hour summer feels like a held breath. The day is done, but the night hasn’t started. It’s a pause. my favourite season summer
But the best part, the beating heart of summer, came last.
Around nine o’clock, the air grew heavy. The crickets stopped chirping. A hush fell over the neighborhood. Then, a flicker of light behind the hills, too brief to be lightning, more like a camera flash from God. Sam would look at me, eyes wide. We’d grab our skateboards and race to the highest point of the street—the old fire road. She was right
It wasn’t a rainstorm. It was a release. The thunder was a bass drum you felt in your ribs. The lightning cracked the sky into jagged white rivers. We didn’t run. We sat there, getting drenched to the bone, shouting over the roar of the water. It was terrifying and beautiful. The summer heat, the pressure of the long, bright days—it all exploded in a single, cleansing hour.
The municipal pool was a miracle of chaos. It smelled of chlorine, coconut sunscreen, and cheap hot dogs. It was a roiling mass of splashing kids, where the lifeguard’s whistle was the only law. We didn’t swim laps; we waged underwater wars, holding our breath until our lungs screamed, wrestling for a single, sunken quarter at the deep end. We flew off the high dive, not as boys, but as Icarus, arms wide, stomach dropping, before slapping the water with a crack that left red welts on our chests. It was glorious. It ends too soon
I’d walk home, squelching in my sneakers, dripping on the front mat. My mom would just shake her head, hand me a towel, and point to the bathroom. “You’re crazy,” she’d say. “All of you.”