The Lost Notebook Years: Story One

The Boy Who Waited for Summer

Story One: The Boy Who Waited for Summer

There was a boy who thought summer could fix everything.

Every year, when the last weeks of school began to drag, he’d count down the days by crossing them off with a red pen on the calendar his mom hung in the kitchen. The squares looked like tiny doors he could open into freedom. Homework would stop. Teachers would stop saying his name wrong. And the air would smell like grass again instead of chalk dust and pencil shavings.

He used to imagine that the first day of summer would arrive like a sunrise that never ended. He’d wake up, stretch, and feel different; lighter, faster, maybe even braver. The trouble was, summer never came that way. It didn’t happen all at once. It just sort of slid in, quiet and slow, like the lazy way the sun melts through curtains in the morning.

The boy’s name was Jamie, but his grandpa called him “Sunny.” He said it was because Jamie was always waiting for the sun; for things to be better, for people to smile again, for time to move faster.

When school finally let out, Jamie rode his bike to the end of the gravel road behind his house. There was a patch of grass there where he could see the whole town: the church steeple, the gas station, even the top of the high school. He told himself he’d spend every day doing something big; building a treehouse, exploring the woods, finding a way to skip rocks all the way across the creek.

But most days, he just sat there.

He’d watch clouds move like herds of quiet animals. He’d listen to the train whistle that always came from somewhere far away. He’d think about what it must be like to go wherever that sound was heading.

One afternoon, he met a girl there. Her name was Anna. She had a jar full of fireflies and a slingshot sticking out of her back pocket. She said she liked catching “the last bit of daylight” before it disappeared.

Jamie told her he was waiting for summer.

She laughed and said, “You’re already in it.”

That night, he couldn’t sleep. He thought about how maybe she was right. Maybe summer wasn’t something that came later. Maybe it was the little things; the train whistle, the smell of grass, the fireflies that blinked like tiny stars you could actually touch.

The next morning, he went back to the field, and she was there again. They spent most of that summer together, not doing anything special — just talking, skipping rocks, and daring each other to jump across the creek. She could always make it. He usually fell in.

By August, the air started to feel different. The light wasn’t as bright, and even the bugs seemed quieter. He knew school would start again soon, and he’d have to stop pretending time stood still.

One afternoon, she didn’t show up. He waited all day, tossing stones into the creek until the sun began to fall behind the trees. The fireflies came out one by one, but she never came. He rode home in the dark, the chain on his bike squeaking with every turn.

When he asked around the next day, her house was empty. Her family had moved. Her dad got a new job two towns over. No note. No goodbye. Just gone.

For the first time that summer, he didn’t ride his bike to the field. He stayed inside, listening to the sound of the ceiling fan turning slow circles. He looked out the window and realized summer had ended without asking his permission.

That night, before bed, he opened his notebook and wrote:

“Next summer, I’ll start earlier. I won’t wait for it to begin.”

He didn’t know it yet, but he’d keep writing. Not just about summer, but about the waiting, the wishing, and the small moments that made everything feel real. And even years later, when he’d forgotten the girl’s voice and the sound of that squeaky chain, he’d still chase that feeling of sunlight through the curtains.

The boy who waited for summer never really stopped waiting. He just learned to write about it instead.