School was a whole different life. This was the real one. And it was just beginning.
I grinned, grabbed my gloves, and slid down the stairs’ banister, burning the back of my thigh. It hurt. It was worth it. my favourite season summer
“Pool,” I confirmed.
That’s when they came out. First one, then ten, then a hundred. Tiny, floating embers of green-gold light. Sam and I would grab a mason jar, punch holes in the lid, and try to catch the impossible. You’d cup your hands around a blinking light, feel the soft tickle of insect legs, and for a second, you’d be holding a star. We’d fill the jar with grass and watch them pulse, a captive constellation, before always, always letting them go. It felt cruel to keep a piece of magic in a jar. School was a whole different life
Afterward, the air was clean and cold. The streets ran with rivers of rainwater. And the smell—that impossible, sweet, wet-earth smell—was the smell of being alive. I grinned, grabbed my gloves, and slid down