Augustine sat on the bay window of her college dorm, looking out into the street, leaves of different orange and red tones were on the ground. It was a perfect picture of fall. Even though it was fall, Augustine still felt that it was summer because she was reminiscing about summer. She was sitting in a light brown swing chair on the porch. The wind was blowing, spreading that sea breeze and salt air as the sun blazed above.
A book was perched atop her legs which were folded against her chest. Music was coming from the record player inside the house. Rust was visible on the bottom of the open door, “Landslide” by Fleetwood Mac was currently playing on the record player. Her attention drifted away from the page she was reading as she heard the hinges of the gate creak. James was coming in from the beach with a surfboard in hand. The sun glistened behind him, droplets of water fell from his wet sandy blonde hair, and his green eyes seemed to look more vibrant. He flashed Augustine a bright smile and he set the board down on the ground. James walked up the porch steps, “You missed a great surf,” he said. “I’ll go out tomorrow morning and catch some waves,” she replied. James took a seat on the chair next to hers, “I’m really glad you invited me to tag along with you,” he said. She nodded, unable to talk knowing about the weight that hung in the air above them like a cloud waiting to release heavy rain. Augustine knew she had to be the one to break the tension because James wouldn’t do it.
Summer was coming to an end, school was about to start and that would mean the end of Augustine and James. “James, I think we should talk,” she said, “About what?” he replied arching his brow. “About this, us,” she said, gesturing between them with her finger. “Okay,” he replied with an edge to his voice. Augustine looked at the ground and then back at James, the interest she previously had in the book she was reading was long gone.
“James, I have to know, what's your intention with us?” Augustine asked. James looked at her, “There’s no intention Augustine, we’re leaving tomorrow. From there on we go our separate ways, I’ll go back to Betty. This was just a summer thing and nothing else”. He replied flatly, Augustine stared at him as realization hit her. She was just the second option, a mere distraction for James.
“So that’s it, I was just your distraction for the summer?” She asked him casually. James stayed silent and refused to look at her, “How could you have expected me to say no? You just showed up and told me to get into the car,” he said angrily. “Really? That’s your excuse James? You were the one that broke up with her! I didn’t make you do that!” Augustine fired back, “What? Did you expect me not to ask you what we are after all you’ve promised this summer?” James was silent again, “I changed my mind, that's all. Betty’s the one I want,” he said.
Augustine stood up hastily, “Get out,” she said calmly. “What?! Tine, you can’t just kick me out!” he exclaimed, “Don’t, don’t call me that anymore. This is my place, so I can and I will,” she replied. It was taking everything in her to not break down and cry right there but she refused to give James that power. “How am I supposed to get back?” he asked. “You saw the taxis in town, so go get one and leave James. By the time I come back here I don’t want to see you or your things,” she said and rushed down the steps, leaving him on the porch.
Once she was down the sandy path and the house was out of view, Augustine sat on the shoreline. The water reached her toes and the coldness of it soothed her, just like she needed. Listening to the ocean she recalled those nights when she and James had been tangled up in the bedsheets. How the first thing she saw when she woke up in the mornings was his face, she caught him looking at her several times. James' words echoed in her brain, “It was just a summer thing”. It might’ve been a summer thing for James but for her, it had been more. It had been the start of what Augustine hoped could be something more, but part of Augustine always knew that it could never be more.
Now, here she was away from the summer house and in her dorm, as she looked out the window she recalled their whispers. Multiple times she had asked him if he was sure, and he had replied that he was. Recalling those days at the beach where they lay under the sun once they had finished surfing, the local concerts they had gone to, the pictures she’d taken, and the nights spent laying on the floor listening to the records they had purchased, a wave of uneasiness washed over her now. Throughout all that time, Augustine had truly believed that this was her first romance and that it would last but the reality of it was that they were doomed from the very start. Those memories had now been tainted, like a clean sheet of paper messed up by the spilling of ink, blurring the pretty words.
People always had this perception of Augustine as a cool bad girl and that nothing could ever possibly affect her. When, in reality, she wasn’t the girl that nothing could affect, nor a bad one. Instead, she was just a girl who felt deeply and pretended nothing got to her. Because that was what girls must do to get by right? So she did that, she pretended James' words didn’t hurt her when on the contrary they cut very deeply.
If Augustine learned anything from that summer, it was that she had picked James first, but James had never even considered picking her. She realized that her pain came from losing someone that wasn’t even hers in the first place. She was always being picked second when she could’ve been picked first. All along she hadn’t been the main character in her very own love story, she had just been the nameless side character in someone else’s story and that story was Betty and James’.
