Hot Summer

 In France our bedrooms stretched out for the July sun, tempting hot rays through the white shutters and glass panels. The bees buzzed around the lavender bush and we all jumped into the pool; it was too hot to do anything other than swim or sit beneath the small umbrella. Each day was patient and yellow and the cool night layered our burning skin, wrapping around our gentle bodies.

Watching the football made me cry as I longed for my own body to run across that grass. Smell the reward of warm sweat, chest heaving. Socks pulled down your sticky shins. I craved permission to release my body just once more, before illness shattered my storefront and took all the valuables. Start fresh, it said. But what else is there except rehearsed bodies bending and twisting and bleeding and pounding. What else could I become that will leave me with bruised bones like these.

We explored old alleyways, ate gelato and baguettes and pasta. When the night came I would return to myself, inviting her in as a visitor. Imagined my soft arms dancing and my heels kissing the soil. In the morning, the aches of my uncertain legs competed for my attention, reminding me of my name. My bare feet carried me down the creaking stairs, through the white doors that were wide open and waiting. I walk on top of the dusty pebbles until it becomes smooth grass.

Olivia Spring is a writer from New York living in Norwich. She is the founder and editor of SICK magazine and is currently writing a book about illness, guilt, and disbelief. Her work has appeared in It’s Nice That, the Guardian, MERRY JANE, and Ache, among others.