ABOUT THAT SUMMER...
"Skiathos Island..."
Nefeli had been working for a month in a big supermarket that had just opened in the town of Skiathos, the beautiful little Greek island that had won her heart years ago. She had to hurry if she was going to be on time and keep the job she so desperately needed. She ran in a panic - always following the orders of her boss - to get everything done, to leave nothing unfinished until tomorrow when the managers would arrive...
It surely was not the job she had dreamed of. But after several years of unsuccessfully searching for the ‘ideal’ job, and the threat of having to return to her hometown of Athens, where her parents reminded her daily that she had achieved nothing, she accepted it without a second thought. “Well, Nefeli, in the end you compromised like everyone else,” she taunted herself as she was forced to accept the reality of her situation.
‘And as if that wasn’t enough, she also had a boss who never missed an opportunity to insult and belittle her at the slightest mistake!’ she blurted out, frustrated and afraid of doing something wrong, almost forgetting her appointment with her childhood friends.
Her childhood friends! The ones that always reminded her of the wonderful years of her childhood! So carefree and happy that she often wished she could relive them! she thought, smiling broadly at the wonderful images that unconsciously crept back into her mind.
She remembered the time when, after a whole year, the holy moment would come for her to meet her summer friends, Michael, Manos, George, Alex, Efi, Margarita, Maria and so many others who had been her holiday companions since the first time she came to Skiathos when she was only nine years old.
Since then, every summer when they met as children, they would happily take their bicycles and ride through the streets, squares, narrow alleys full of excitement, while sometimes they would get lost in the cobbled streets playing hide and seek, playing with a ball or a bottle, filling their souls with excitement, joy and vitality.
Except for that summer of her sixteenth year....That summer had marked her life and was forever etched in her memory, for everything had changed since then and nothing could have foreseen the turmoil it would bring to her still childlike soul.
She remembered the first glimpse of their summer meeting, when the outward changes in them had been so obvious that they had remained silent. They did not know where to give the famous, as they said, “leadership”. A “custom” inviolable for all over time, in which only one was crowned leader, the one who had shown the most signs of change.
Then, for the first time, the oldest of the group, her best friend Alexis, had the bright idea of doing the exact opposite. To make the leader the one who had changed the least. And so she had become herself....
But instead of making her smile, it had made her very sad, because it meant that she was still just another child. And she was in such a hurry to grow up!
She remembered their games, the laughter and the excitement that had changed that summer. For the girls were now more concerned with whether they were pretty, whether a boy would like them and when they would finally go on their first summer date, while the boys were constantly talking about cars, fast motorbikes and, of course, women, calling them by a slightly different name.
And she was somewhere in the middle, not knowing which category she belonged to, the growing girl or the innocent child who still dreamed of riding a bike. The only thing she knew was that she did not care to wear a miniskirt or paint her lips to please someone.
There was only one person who wanted to approve of her, and that was Alex! The one who had begun to haunt her dreams in a completely different and inappropriate way!
And he, especially that summer when she thought he understood, had begun to avoid her for no reason! And it was only later that she found out that he was dating a girl from Skiathos, older than him by a year, tall, fit and above all “experienced”, as all the other boys in the group said with envy.
Alex, her dear Alex, was dating a 19-year-old girl who was teaching him all the “tricks” of growing up! She was so angry with him, but deep down she knew it was only a matter of time...
But no! She didn’t want to lose him! She knew she could act like this because that’s what he wanted! She knew it and she would do it if it meant having him near her again! She had thought recklessly and put her bold plan into action.
One afternoon, when he was alone in his parents’ house, she went to see him. But this time she was dressed differently. Wearing a short, strapless mini dress with no bra to accentuate her firm breasts, she walked through the door of his house, ostensibly to ask him something. But all she wanted was for him to look at her a little, like the girl who had caught his attention.
And at some point, when they were standing side by side again, watching the sunset, she turned and looked at him, her eyes full of longing.
“Alex, do you love me even a little?” she had asked him, her voice soft and hopeful.
“What are you talking about, you fool? Aren’t you my best friend?” He had answered her tenderly. But she didn’t want that! She didn’t want him to look at her like a friend, but like a woman! And she told him so....She then moved away from him just a little, and with her heart beating like a drum, she began to pull down the straps of her dress one by one.
“Why don’t you want me, Alex? Don’t you like me at all?” she asked, her voice soft and gentle as she began to pull down her dress, wanting to expose her body to him.
She just wanted to show him that she was a woman now, that she could give him anything he wanted as long as he asked for it! And she was about to do just that when he stopped her with a sudden, anxious movement. She had looked at him for a few moments in silence and she could hear the beating of a heart. Although she couldn't understand whether it was her heart or his that was beating so loudly...
“What are you doing, Nefeli? This isn’t like you!... You don’t need this! .....” he whispered, so close she almost fainted.
“Come on, go home! And as for whether I love you or not... I think you know that...” he had told her ambiguously, and the next minute he was gone.
He was completely gone! And she never saw him again as he left the very next day for a college in England where he began to study ....
