When I think of that summer the first thing I remember is the purple sweater I wore almost every day. I was twelve and probably should have been wearing a bra, but no one had mentioned it yet and I was clueless about the way that the knitted material clung to me. You wouldn’t have noticed anyway, but it bothers me now when I look back at that well worn photograph. Maybe it’s a summer thing. All the fresh air and running around causes clothes to become too snug, and ill-fitting. In that same photograph, your socks are pulled up too high and your shorts look a few inches too short. I know they’re red and the material was rough to the touch, some cheap polyester mix, even though the photograph is in black and white.

I remember the scent of the air. Burnt earth, and pre-teen sweat. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, band-aides, too many scabs from scraping our limbs on the bark of the trees we’d climb. Pin pricked fingertips and blood brothers, though I never forgot I was a girl. I always envied your dark, hair and eyes – a complete contrast to the blond of my hair and the nearly transparent green of my eyes. I liked the way our skin matched at the end of the summer, turning my pale into your dusky color, and we’d both been browned in the oven.

Late nights under the stars until your mom called twice for you to go back home, and then you had to or you’d be in trouble. Trouble meant you couldn’t come over the next day and neither of us wanted that. Lemonade stands, where we drank more than we sold and saved our nickels and dimes for comic books and candy that we’d hide under my bed. I don’t remember our secret code or the handshake we made up, but I recall the way your hand felt in mine when we stayed out too late and the woods behind my house suddenly felt scary instead of as comfortable and familiar as my bed back at home.

Laying on our backs in the grass, or under the big pine tree in the needles that should have felt sharp but were soft instead. You taught me the names of the dinosaurs, Muttaburrasaurus, Stegosaurus, Tyrannosaurus, Peteinosaurus, Metriorhynchus, we’d hunt the ponds and streams for their ancestors and I’d collect pretty rocks, and colorful leaves. You learned my love for moss, and built me a castle with a throne of rock, and a moss carpet. A tree stump for our table, and the lunches I’d pack and carry in that worn pink backpack.

Ballerina partner in dry leaves, secret keeper, story teller. You were the angel to my devil and my partner in crime all at once.

Somehow twelve turned into thirteen and thirteen stopped thinking eleven was cool. The pink backpack got thrown away, and moss carpets weren’t as appealing as make-up and magazines filled with shiny pages of boys on TV. The only band-aids used were from shaving cuts, along legs that had lost their bronzy hue. I stopped knowing you. I stopped knowing what every smile meant and when you were going to tell me a secret. I forgot the names of the dinosaurs. I didn’t make shapes out of the clouds anymore and peanut butter and jelly lost its appeal. I forgot to miss you. I forgot the feeling of that sewing needle pressing into my thumb and melding it with yours and everything that it was supposed to mean. I forgot promises made in haste, heartfelt but given too easily. I forgot that you knew me. I forgot that you were mine and I was yours.

Somewhere along the way, ten, fifteen, years later I remembered. Before I came across the photograph in a pile of my mother’s things, before peanut butter and jelly was my favorite mid-night snack. Before I relearned all the names of the dinosaurs and danced alone in the woods behind my parent’s house on the first day of fall with the moon coming up, I missed you.

I missed you. I missed you more when I called up your parents and asked for your number and your mother rambled on about what you were up to. I missed the way we’d sneak apple pie at seven in the morning before we’d rush off for our day of exploring in the woods. I missed everything we did together during those few short years we were so close, and even more I missed everything we didn’t do, and didn’t share. First kisses, school dances, late night study sessions. Drive in movies, learning to drive stick shift on the back road’s in my Dad’s truck. I missed the feeling of your hand in mine, at 15 and 20. I missed the first time you shaved, and hearing the difference in your voice as it changed from day to day. I missed hearing about your favorite books, and songs that came on the radio you’d hum along to.

So, I found you. I found you to remind myself. I found you, I found myself. I found everything that I’d missed and so much more. I found my ballerina partner in dry leaves, secret keeper, story teller. The angel to my devil and partner in crime all at once. I found my soul-mate and the love of my life.