Blue False Indigo
from Wild Thoughts: A Floral Guide to Feeling by Garrett Huon
Few places have decent coverage from the sun in Summer, and even fewer are private enough for two girls planning for the rest of vacation. A place not occupied by mothers and their children or people from school hoping to hang out. A place for their secrets. When they meet at the corner where the city mart meets the drug store, they begin walking with no destination in mind, looping around neighborhoods, passing by stores and alleyways. It’s a long while beneath the sun before they find what they are looking for.
There’s shade under the brush, down the slope, in the creek bed. They walk barefoot on the moss-slick rocks, ankle deep in cool water as they let loose their dreams, their fears, their anger into the air. And it all rises with the heat. They get lost in the branches, in the glowing green leaves taking in the sunlight for them.
They find themselves in the cool cover of the cement pipe used to support the road above them. Sharing big smiles and laughs that make their chests hurt, two girls see their lives in daydreams projected in the shimmering summer air. New York. Los Angeles. Chicago. They’ll go anywhere to leave their small town. They’ll go anywhere if it means they can go together.
“It’s me and you.”
“Yeah, me and you. Always.”
When the sky becomes as warm as the air—blue turning into orange and the leaves beginning to dull—they have one last march through the water before taking the black top home. There are promises between their lips as they part in the middle of the street. Knowing glances, too. They are best friends. They’re more than that too.
They are just two girls enjoying summer.