Author's Note: This short story was inspired by one of my favorite songs, 'American Honey' by Lady Antebellum.
I remember watching her hair bounce with each step she took on the concrete path covered in years of memories. I smiled as the color of her locks, which reminded me of the honey on my toast in the morning, flashed before my eyes. I remember feeling those sweet, kind lips on top of mine, while hiding from the dry Idaho summer in the shade of an oak tree. The sensations I felt with her petite hand entangled with mine reentered my nerve endings on the pads of my fingers. My heart became warm as the thought of sometime seeing her again entered my accountant mind.
We were fifteen; wanting to leave the small town life, but not quite ready to leave. Spending the summer days walking barefoot and holding hands in the fields of wild grass is what we did best. The smells of fresh air filled our lungs and the soft roar of the distant rivers surrounded us. We learned more about life spending the summer hand in hand sharing soft secrets and stories than the town preacher could ever drill in our headstrong heads. She was a girl who was steady as the sun and free as the puffy clouds in the open sky. The sweet as honey girl, whose mezzo soprano voice was the music where she taught me how to dance during the sunset and early hours of the night.
I am now twenty-three and walking on the same path I walked with her eight summers ago-the first time since then. I moved out after high school, trying to find success in the Big Apple and haven't been back because I guess I just got caught up in the buzz of the crazy life I was starting to lead. Trying to be the accountant that my heart really wasn't in made me lose my mind until I just packed up my things and drove back home. Not the home where I lived in the luxurious apartment filled with fancy devices and the table covered with so many bills that I have to take a shovel to dig out a place to set my plate down.
I feel summer wind blowing and it whispers her name, as if it knew I was longing for my long lost friend. I breathe in the familiar fresh air and close my eyes, letting the sun's rays that I have missed so much surround my body. I hear footsteps coming closer and closer to me. I open my eyes.
The same girl I spent my teenage summers falling in love with stood in front of me, but older. The same honey hair I loved to run my hands through was shorter, but even more beautiful. Her radiant smile beamed as her colorful, flowery sundress swayed perfectly in the wind. She greeted me with a small hello.With a quick glace at my left hand she then placed her lips on mine. I smiled and then cupped her face in my hands.
Nothing is sweeter then summertime with my American Honey.
