There’s something about the summer that always feels different. People are kinder. Skies are bluer. Nights feel longer. In the summer, we would rollerblade on warm nights. We scraped knees and peeled sweet and sticky tangerines. We never wore shoes. Instead, we ran barefoot from house to house. I can still hear my father yell to me as a child, “CAR!” as he’d warn us to leave the street. We’d seek shelter in the prickly and itchy grass, waiting for our time to return.

My days often ended with a cool shower and an old hand-me-down T-shirt. In the summer, I’d wait by our kitchen stove with anticipation. I’d watch my father chop and caramelize onions. Spaghetti bolognese was his specialty. And so we had it every Sunday and we never got tired of it.

In the summer there was neighborhood night swimming and borrowed clothes. We’d watch movies in whoever’s basement was closest. There was always something exciting about staying out “late” on a weekday. “Staying for dinner” always seemed to turn into makeshift sleepovers with bags of popcorn and scoops of strawberry ice cream.

In the summer we’d stay up late talking, sharing secrets and desires. We all wished we had cars. We wished Friends came on earlier and stayed on later and we wished our crushes liked us back. Most importantly, we wished it stayed summer forever.

In the summer we got our licenses. This meant night swimming and fence hopping. We’d sit by my neighborhood dock, watching the water and laughing uncontrollably. In the summer we’d creep up squeaking steps, attempting to be invisible on late nights. We felt safe in our rooms. No one could get us in there.

In the summer we ate late night waffle house hash browns, covered in maple syrup, and pressed onto pieces of dry toast. On mornings we’d set towels out at the bottom of a hot pavement driveway, dipping dates into jars of peanut butter and attempting to fight off any ants that came near. We’d lie beneath the warm rays and hope. We hoped for freckles. We hoped for sunny days and stormy nights. And most importantly, we’d hope it’d stay summer forever.