Rach’s Reviews > Sunburn > Status Update

My guilt has gone away, I don’t care about anything anymore. Hate me if you want to hate me, I’d love the attention. Let me be delivered to the Devil and wait in Hell for a second Harrowing. All I’m doing is trying to love people. All I need is the right kind of love back.

Look at the colours of her. Look at all the colours of her world. There is not one shade of me. She looks so happy.

All I can think of is the letter I sent to a house Susannah isn’t even in. It’s hard not be demolished by the thought of her, because I live in a body that has loved her and I see with eyes that have witnessed her. She is part of my muscles, my tissue, she is unforgettable. . . I bet she laughs because she hasn’t thought of me in a long time and then puts my memory away again, folded up in a drawer. . .

If she only knew how badly I need Martin, how many cans of lemonade he bought me in school, or how many times he left the boys to walk me home. To Evelyn, he is only an inconvenient thing that stops me from being myself. But I am the inconvenient thing. I am my own biggest obstacle. I always have been.

The last of August is peeling off my shoulders, revealing softer skin for the Autumn to destroy.

I am running out of time. Very soon, I will have to decide whether I am brave enough to be with her. To be with her is a sin, to be without her is a tragedy.

All my guilt disappears into the condensation. My hair is damp, my skin is flushed, I don't mind how I look. Before her, I was just one of Dad's rocky fields. She came and picked all the stones from me, she made me useful and green. Afterwards she gets up to check that we haven't flattened the new strawberry runners, and she giggles. She is so bright, so colourful, I get sunstroke from looking at her.

Sometimes when we make love, we melt out of shape and become one thing. A thing that wants nothing but to touch and be touched, to be real and make noise. We can be heavy against each other, without any need to impress one another. . . There is no pressure. I can exist as a conduit of pleasure and love. I want to always be this way.

This confusion is torture, the unknowing is a hang on my throat, tightening. Lethal, glorious, inviting Hell. I want this Hell to last. And it does, all Summer long. I watch helplessly, hopelessly, dying as the hue of her goes from sunrise to sunset, and I fall deeper with each new shade.

We are all laughing. I am swallowing a flame. She is so sweet. She looks at me with such an intensity that her eyes could make a diamond of me. We exist for a moment, above the laughter, the barking, the sound of her shoes. It’s just us, our eyes meeting on the school path. I just look. I can do nothing else. I would look forever.