Boots of Spanish Leather

[an excerpt from the current writing project]:

2012

But I dream of her. I dream of her all the time. 

It's weird. The dreams are usually about the stuff we used to do together. Like when we drove her Jeep Up North for Fall Break that autumn of my senior year. We bought our lunch from our favorite deli in downtown Petoskey and brought it to the beach where we had a picnic on the shores of Lake Michigan. I sat there silently watching the waves, hoping she wouldn't bring up my hangover. I watched the lake and the line of the beach and noticed that the tide had changed and the sea gulls were working busily well down the slope of new wet sand. The red and white buoys out in the distance were diminishing as they receded. You could smell the lake in the October winds, and the white caps crashing against the pier foretold of winter. 

In another dream, we are camping out in the woods at her cabin on Sugar Island. Right before I wake up, she turns the ignition on her family's speedboat. I'm on shore, and she's kind of waving good bye. I'm standing on a beach of washed up pine needles and she's going off into the Lake Superior sunset, into another life. I've had that dream so many times I've lost count. 

Sometimes I wake from those dreams convinced it is the Fall of 2009 all over again, but it's never real. The ticking of the clock reminds me that she is gone and those days of my Indian summer were a long time ago. I lay awake in bed, wishing I had asked her to send boots of spanish leather. I got rid of her letters a long time ago, but you can't get rid of dreams.