by Amanda Mcgoldrick

Created on: November 05, 2008

Reckless- It was the hottest summer that I remember from my youth. The sky hadn't shed a drop since March and the stifling heat radiated off the dry, dusty asphalt. We wandered aimlessly in the baking sun, walking down the isolated streets to some nowhere destination we didn't really want to be anyway. It was an era when we were reckless and rash and oblivious to the consequences of our hedonistic actions. We dug up whatever we wanted, drove over anything in our way, and threw away anything we didn't need. Those who worked worked hard and those who didn't lazed like basset hounds, lapping up water to simply stay alive. But most of all I remember it as the summer when I first learned about pain.

On that early June day that broke the summer's heat wave record, I found myself sneaking a Marlboro Red with Mason Harley before church beneath the old oak tree that stood majestically behind our town's Godly wooden structure. We both relished in the slight alleviation from the stifling pews and enjoyed our moment, not even the slightest bit concerned that Reverend Mitchell would come through the back doors and remind of us of sin or that my mother would spy me and lecture me on respect for the house of God. I didn't care about that anymore than I cared about what Reverend Mitchell said up on his soapbox. I had quit going to church out of any real faith years ago and went only to keep my Baptist mother from begging for my immortal soul. It was this day, in that sacred moment of insolence and tobacco, when I saw her for the first time.

She appeared suddenly in the back doorway of the church in a white cotton dress that flickered in the barely-there breeze, wrapping around long, sculpted legs. Her shoulders, rosy from the sun's touch, peeked out from a white halter dress that did nothing to hide female form. Dirty blonde hair fell around freckled cheeks and bewitching blue eyes. There was something about herperhaps her innocent white dress juxtaposed with a dangerous tint to her azure eyesthat captured me. She stood there, leaning against the frame of the church, curiously watching us as we watched her. She bit her raspberry lip in amusement as she studied the spectacles we no doubt were.

Two men stood dumbfounded like school boys for what seemed like hours before Mason cleared his throat nervously, attempting to break the awkward silence. He stuttered an awkward hello,' which seemed to amuse her as her raspberry lips curled into a glossy smirk. I noted his brown eyes

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