Summer is my best friend

Summer and I have been friends for the last seven years. In these seven years, many things had changed, except the relationship between us. From being good friends, we had become great friends, and then best friends.

It was difficult for people like us to have friends—proper friends with whom you share everything, you drink and eventually get drunk, you speak without the fear of slipping up or oversharing. Summer was that friend of mine, who kept my secrets. All of them.

I kept her secrets too. After all, I was well aware of how burdensome some secrets could be, and our secrets were very similar to each other.

Her number was saved as my emergency contact. While speed-dialing her, I thought of something weird. If I was ever found on a street again, in a state of utter confusion and memory loss, they would call her. They would contact her, and not the man I had already accepted as my lover. It had happened before, but this time I did not want it to happen.

Maybe, as she–the red dragon– said, now things would be different from before. Now that I had claimed my name, still I was not certain what she meant by that, but I hoped I would not return to that state anymore. If something I dreaded the most, it was that.

"Hello, stranger!" the cheerful voice of a teenage girl rang loudly, making me feel giddy inside my stomach. I heard this voice after a very long time.

"How I missed you," I said returning the same joy. "I have some news for you."

"You have found him, haven't you?" she said like an annoying know-it-all, but I felt loved because of her tone.

"How'd you know?" For a moment I genuinely wanted to know, but then I decided otherwise. "Okay, never mind. Yes, I have found him."

In my seven years of friendship with him, I had understood one major thing about Summer. She was a multi-layered person. There were many more mysteries about her, than what she shared with me. Knowing everything prior was just a small part of her charm.

"And how is he? Tell me everything. Like everything."

How to start? I thought for a moment and then said, "He is exactly like the one in my dreams. His eyes sparkle when he smiles. He is very handsome, and gorgeous, but his body is filled with scars. Literal ones, not metaphorical ones. He smiles a lot, most of the time to hide what he is thinking. He is the responsible person everyone would go to solve their problems."

I thought of more qualities of Max. what else was there that made me crazy?

"When he listened to something or focused on something, he tilted his head slightly to his right. When he thinks of something, his eyes go still. He is generally shy, but at times he becomes really shameless." Last night made my cheeks heat.

"Ooohhh! You dog! You have already done it, haven't you?" Summer giggled through the phone. "Tell me everything. How is he? Is a skillful, expert like you? Or the innocent, awkward, and cute one?"

I walked towards the open french windows of my room and peeked outside. There he was, across the road, talking to an old woman. He bowed his head to show his respect and earned a big, beautiful smile from the elderly woman. She was not anyone from the master's family, her shabby apparel and a broken, sellotaped walking stick confirmed that.

"I can't believe you just asked that. Men don't talk about this shit, Summer. It's more than enough that I have called you to tell you about him. My sex life remains classified."

He was more like the experienced, skilled man who had lost his touch due to lack of practice. His touches, his kisses, his bites, and nibbles made me moan like I never did before, even though they were awkward and nervous at times. It might be the effect he had on me emotionally or just the fact that my body recognised his touch.

Whatever it was, I was not talking about it with Summer. We already shared too much and too much information, sometimes very intimate. Once she told me her awkward sex story that made me blush for two days straight. It took me a while to be able to look at her face later.

"You're such a prude. I already know how he is. I saw it."

I couldn't catch that. Was it a joke she made to make me uncomfortable, or she was actually sharing some truth? I looked around me consciously. Goosebumps marked my skin instantly.

"Don't be nervous, boy. I just had some visions. It was Fifi. I was worried about you, so she showed me where you were and what were you doing at the moment. I didn't see anything. I swear." She huffed and added, "I was just happy to know that you were alive and not having another one of your episodes."

Momentarily, I felt a pang of regret and sadness. The last time I had lost my memory, Summer got scared. Not just scared, I should say terrified. She kept saying, "Everything will be fine. I am here."

She was there for me, alone, confused as she did not know what to do in that state. If Fifi had not helped her, she would have started breaking down. "Thank you for being so kind to me. Don't know if I deserve it."

"Why are you talking like the antiheroes of the mushy romance novels? You are not going die, because, you know…" she hung the sentence in thin air suggestively.

"Yeah, and that reminds me. Do you know anything about dragons? Or a certain red dragon?" I genuinely hoped she would say 'yes' and then share her wisdom with me.

"Dragons are the primordial powers. They are creatures that come directly from the source, you know, where everything else comes from. Why are you skiing this?"

Clearly, neither her visions nor Fifi was not strong enough to gauge the red dragon's presence. "I have been threatened by one," I said nonchalantly and told her the whole incident.

"First of all, you should shoot this Vee guy. Is he an immortal too? If yes, then let me send you a pdf. You will find all the ways how you can kill an immortal. Second of all, how can you be so calm about it? Do you know what it means to get threatened by a dragon? They are one of the most powerful creatures who actually control magic. What the hell have you done to her that she threatened you?"

She went on yelling for another minute and finally sighed. "What mess have you created out there, boy?"

"I think it is the mess created by Max's ex-lover, not me. I mean, I am not that person anymore."

"Tell that to the red dragon." Summer scolded me, "Dragons and emotions were created together. That is why they always act upon their emotions, and impulses, and that is another reason that most of the powerful magics are linked with various emotions. Maybe she is hurt because of something and now she wants revenge."

That made me think. Her words were not suggesting revenge, were they? If I was not wrong, they were more along the lines of, 'I'd love to see how you fuck yourself up once again.' At least that was the underlying message. I told her so.

"Listen, if that is the case then you need to find out how you fucked up everything in the first place. And for that you need to access your memories. Are you ready for that?"

I stayed silent. Accessing the past memories would bring the heartbreaking pain back. Even though my memory was lost, the pain was still there haunting me. It had haunted me for a very long time, probably it would for another very long period unless I met Max. He was my cure, but something told me that he was the reason for my pain too. Poets would say, 'That is love.' But what if I was not ready?

"If you have reached there after such a long time, that means you have a purpose there. Nothing in this universe happens without a reason. It all seems puzzling, but that is only the surface. Once you scratch the surface, you start to see the patterns. I am sure there is a pattern in your story too."

Her words rang in my head.

"She said that I had claimed my name."

"How about this, you let me do some research on this, and I will call you when I am done. I will also ask Fifi. she must know about the dragons, being an old soul and all."

I sighed in relief. This was Summer, my best friend, with whom I could share everything and nothing went in vain. She would definitely find answers for me.

"But, there is something you should know. A girl named, Emma, or Emmeline, something like that, had been looking for David Maxime. She has also found Thomas Byrne. I don't feel good about it, neither does Fifi. you should be careful."