It was a lazy late July afternoon. The heat had imprisoned me inside my disheveled room.

Multiple fashion magazines were strewn around the floor, each advertising fun ways to stay cool
in the summer sun. Eyeshadow pallettes of bright spring colors lay open, used, and tossed aside.
Eyeliners with the caps off and powder brushes littered the vanity.
I lay sprawled on my unmade bed, my favorite red and pink quilt that my grandmother
made folded under my head as a pillow. The fan in the corner of the room oscallated slowly
making an intoxicating white noise almost lulling me to sleep. I tossed yet another magazine on
the floor, wishing my friends who lived nextdoor were home.
As I began to rise from my comatose position, I heard the thrilling sound of laughter
outside. Curious, I cracked my window. A rush of heat nearly knocked me backwards. Again I
heard the sounds of laughter and water splashing, and sloshing onto the grass coming from my
other nextdoor neighbors’ house. I sighed with disappointment. The joy wasn’t coming from my
friend’s house, it was coming from the little girl who lived on the other side of me. She was
about three years younger than me, and while we had hung out from time to time in the past, it
was under parental obligation.
As I reached back toward the magazine I had tossed aside, I paused. I realized I had a
choice to make. I could continue living in agonizing boredom, or I could try something new. I
could make the decision to go over to my neighbor’s house and ask to play. While older than her,
I wasn’t too old and too cool to admit that splashing around in water on a hot summer day
sounded like a small piece of heaven.
I yelled to my mom on the way out of the front door, “Mom! I’m going over to Kelsey’s
house!”
She looked up from the dishes, somewhat surprised, and said, “That bored, huh?”
What if she thinks we are friends after this?​ I thought as I made the short trek to her back
gate,​ I don’t want her coming around and asking to hang out all the time.
The wooden gate creaked as I opened it. Kelsey, looked up wiping her wet hair off of her
face. She smiled widely. “Hi Anna! Want to come swimming with me?”
She jumped over the inflated rubber side of a large river raft and ran on the water soaked
grass. She grabbed my hand. “Look! It’s super fun! You can bounce from side to side until you
fall into the water.” I looked inside the raft and all sections had been filled with ice cold water
from the green garden hose.
We didn’t live in a wealthy neighborhood. None of us had pools and we generally spent
our summers running around in bare feet, spraying each other with the hose in the backyard or
running through sprinklers. On particularly fun days, some neighbors might break out the slip n’
slide for us to bruise our bodies on before relaxing with rootbeer floats. Sometimes our parents
would convince us to wash their cars just so we could use the hose in the 100 degree heat.
I looked at Kelsey, and then back at the raft scene before me. I slipped off my flip flops
and didn’t even bother to run home to change into my swimsuit. I took Kelsey’s hand and we
climbed on top of one side of the rubber raft. I immediately lost my balance and fell into the
water. Kelsey laughed and jumped over me to the other side of the raft while I watched. She
bounced back and forth until she too lost her balance and fell into the water. We both started
laughing hysterically.
“Ok, I want to try that now,” I laughed. I climbed back up, gathered my courage, and
jumped to the other side of the raft. I made it to the other side of the raft and then fell. And I fell
over and over for the rest of the afternoon. We laughed until we cried. We created games. We
raced each other around the radius of the raft until one of us lost our balance and fell in. We lost
all track of time until our skin became cold as the sun went down.
That day marked the start of a new tradition; The Raft. It was our makeshift swimming
pool for many summers to come. It served us well, providing us with magical memories until it
was so tattered with holes that it could no longer be patched. And as the raft eventually died
away, so did our friendship. Like the raft, we grew older and went our separate ways, our
friendship filling with holes that eventually grew too large. And yet, when I think of summer, I
think of that raft, and I think of Kelsey; a friend.