I started looking forward to summer again. School was getting difficult; between detention and the disappointment on my mother’s face whenever I failed another test, I couldn’t wait to be done with it.

I still peeled potatoes, but I spat in the bowl when I was done. Petty, right?

One day, when I wanted some quiet, I went up to the cliffs. There weren’t dolphins in the bay. I didn’t know it then, but I would forever associate you with dolphins. It’s funny, isn’t it, how persistent human memory is. I thought of you then, of the time you asked me whether someone you only met over summer could be a best friend, of the tears in your eyes when I threw your friendship away.

It was for the best, I told myself. You were better off not hanging around a delinquent like me.