The Summer the Lake Dried Up

That summer was supposed to be the last perfect one. The one before college, before scatterings and jobs and becoming different people in different cities. It was supposed to be days at the lake, bonfires with marshmallows that never fully melted, and laughter that echoed across the still water long after midnight.

But the lake dried up.

By the end of May, there were already rumors. Some said it was the drought, others blamed a hidden crack in the lake bed. No one had answers, only guesses, and those didn't matter to us. What mattered was that by June, the dock sat crooked in the mud like a relic of something extinct. The canoes we had painted in seventh grade were propped up in the boathouse, and no one bothered pulling them out.

It didn’t rain. Not once.

The town was quiet in a way that felt wrong. The wind blew dry heat into the trees, and the leaves didn’t rustle—they just sort of rattled like paper about to tear. My shirt stuck to my back every day, and even when the sun set, there was no relief. But we stayed. We tried.

Claire brought her guitar to the lake anyway, though we sat on cracked earth instead of damp grass. Sam made us lemonade from his mom’s shriveled garden lemons. Maya tried to start a fire one night for old time's sake, but the ban was in full swing by then. Sparks were forbidden. So we lit candles in jars and huddled in the yellow light like kids pretending the world hadn’t changed.

Some days we drove in silence. We’d take Sam’s dad’s old truck down roads we didn’t know, windows open to nothing. Once we ended up at an abandoned water park, and Claire climbed the dry slide in flip-flops and yelled, “We’re making memories whether the world likes it or not!”

We laughed, but it sounded too loud. It echoed back wrong.

By July, the heat had settled into our bones. Conversations dried up like the lake. Even Sam stopped bringing his Polaroid. We used to fill albums each summer. Now there was one picture tacked above my bed—Claire holding up a sunflower, already drooping, pretending it was a prize.

“I think this is the last one,” she said that day. She meant the flower. I wondered if she meant more.

Then Maya left. Just a text, no goodbye.

Mom wants to spend the rest of the summer in Oregon. Cool weather, family stuff. Sorry guys. Be safe.

We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t talk about anything real anymore. What was there to say?

One night, Claire and I drove back to the lake. Just us this time. It was almost August. The air was brittle with heat even at midnight. We brought sleeping bags but didn’t sleep. We lay on the dock, now completely on land, and stared up at a sky full of stars that felt too far away.

"Do you ever feel like..." she started, then stopped. Her voice cracked. She hadn’t played her guitar in weeks. I missed it.

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. Like we’re in the wrong story.”

I thought about it. “Yeah. Every day.”

She turned her head to look at me. Her face was soft, and I couldn’t tell if it was moonlight or something sad inside her eyes.

“I think I wanted this summer to fix everything,” she said. “But nothing got fixed. Nothing even started.”

I didn’t have a reply, so I held her hand. We lay there until the sky paled and the stars vanished.

Claire left the next week.

I helped her load her car. She hugged me longer than she needed to. Her hair smelled like peppermint. I still remember that part, even now.

Sam stayed behind, like me. We saw each other less and less. Once, in late August, I caught him walking alone around the dry edge of the lake. He waved but didn’t come over.

The last night of the summer, I went to the dock one final time. I brought an old album. The last few pages were blank. I thought maybe I’d fill them, write something. But I didn’t.

I sat on the dry wood and watched the moon rise. The lakebed below was cracked and silent. A forgotten place.

Not every summer is golden. Some summers crack. Some summers vanish before they begin. Some leave you with nothing but what almost was.

But I still go back, sometimes. Just to remember how it felt when the air was heavy with what we thought would happen. When we believed we had one last season to hold everything together.

And even though it never worked out that way, I think part of me still waits for the rain.