His dad had done most of the eleven hour drive and now it was 3am as they moved through the musty smell that these rooms take on after ten months with nobody in them. The family had a rhythm like a tide, ten months there, two months here. This moment was always exciting for all of them with summer stretched out ahead.

He felt the anticipation of catching those massive smallmouth Lake Erie bass and sleeping in the dorm on the cool old bunk beds with his brothers, of bonfires, friends and extended family but at fifteen these things were not the main attraction anymore.

Daylight was only three hours off. How could he sleep knowing she was probably there right now, actually there, just a three minute sprint through the deep sand at her grandfather’s cottage on the beach. How could he have missed her almost all of last summer until they met just a few days before he had to go back to school at the other end of the world which is what it might as well have been. She must have been on Erie Road. She must have been on the beach.

One single scoop of tiger tail. That’s what she ordered. “We don’t have tiger tail in the states,” she told him. He gave her an impossibly large scoop in hopes that she would come back. She never left the ice cream stand that day. She leaned on the sticky counter and they talked until they closed.

“You should wipe this sticky counter,” she told him. “You should shut up”. He meant it as a joke of course and she seemed to get it but even though it broke the ice it echoed through his head and he wondered if it was too edgy. They were together every possible minute last summer until he left and in the era before constant connection they had done the entire ten months without a word between them.

He stopped, winded on the sand in front of her grandfather’s cottage. It was just past 6am.”What the heck. Even if she’s here she’s probably not awake yet”. When he came back later he climbed the stairs but clearly the family had not arrived for summer yet. The winter covers were still on the windows and there were dead leaves in piles up against the cottage on the deck.

Later as he fished from the pier he watched the place for any movement. Day after day he repeated this. The walk by in the morning, the surveillance from the pier in the afternoon and a last walk by at night to check for the possible glow of human occupancy. The spring had been the hardest, wondering about her but this was torture. The rack.

Then one morning there was movement. Not there but at the place next door. He called up from the beach in a slightly higher pitch than usual thinking that might make him sound less threatening. “Hi… Hi… Excuse me!” A woman in her seventies leaned on her deck railing to talk to him. He didn’t ask about his friend specifically. That might freak her out so he asked about the family in general. She was direct and matter of fact. “I have no idea. They’re usually here by now”. ” Would you have a phone number for them?” She did not. Or maybe she just didn’t want to give it out to a stranger.

Every scoop of tiger tale he served made him wonder about her. Summer was half gone now. Every minute of it wasted. His eyes swept across the tourists until there were only a few days left. Leaving in August was always hard but this would be unbearable. The mystery alone would kill him.

Then one morning as he ran down the beach there she was. He called her name and she turned with a blank stare. He wondered if she would actually be able to see his heart pound. There was no smile and just a hint of confusion. He ran up to her so fast he almost ran her over. He was like a St. Bernard filled with love, excitement and devotion.

As she began to recall him she looked down and stirred the sand with her foot. A small smile… “How’s it going?”. He was crushed. They sat on the rocks and she told him she had been in a hospital. He looked down at the thin red cut marks on her thighs. He had wanted to kiss her and touch her but now he wanted to hold her and help her. He had ten months to build her up as some golden goddess of love when all she was was a child trying to survive her teens, He would be her friend and he realized that that’s all he ever was. Later he walked out on the pier, cast his line and thought of other things.