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Crouched down, I lay my palms on the grass and the earth feels warm beneath them. It's that avid late-summer heat that I can't help but love. Nature has taken on its role of autumn but the sun refuses to give up. I'm wearing my red peep-toe flats, my favourite jeans and a polka-dot tee. My hair falls messily at my collar bone. I slide my fingers in and out of the blades of grass leaving a sticky, bitter feeling on my fingertips. I don't dare put them near my mouth.

I wait for him outside the city park. I wedge myself between the sidewalk and the wooden park fence. I sit in a patch of clovers and examine them carefully for one that isn't like the rest. Jake isn't like the rest. He walks toward me with that toothless smile resting between his cheeks. His dimples consider appearing but decide against it. His brown and white sneakers and loose-fit denims scream to me. My heart races when he slides into the small patch of grass - between the park fence and the city sidewalk - next to me. His soft, but callused hands find their place locked between my fingers.

"When?" I say, questioningly.
"Too soon."
"When?"
"Too so-"
"When are you leaving, Jake?" I repeat, with more force this time.
"Today."

I glance frantically at the ground in hopes to find something. Nothing. Just my luck.

"When did you find out?"
"...Last week." He whispers.
"You waited until today to tell me you were leaving today? What are you doing to us, Jake?"
"I told you, it's not my fault I have to go. I don't want to go. Trust me."

I fiddle with the bow on my shoe and don't dare look him in the eye. His hand lays against my warm, wet face. His tears fall into the clover patch as he wipes mine with his callused palm. I pick up a clover drenched with his leaving - four leaves.

Jake left that afternoon. That sundrenched, early autumn afternoon. I walked home on the weathered sidewalk with that clover in my jean pocket.

Learn more about this author, Terri Lynn Court.
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