And Summer Is Gone

People change all the time, and sometimes they change for the worse, thus ruining friendships. Susie Kretschmer's short story "And Summer Is Gone" depicts the loss of a friendship between two people, Amy and David. Amy falls into the hole of desiring to be a part of the popular crowd at school. She is an egocentric and insecure person, while David is meticulous and sensitive.

As time passes by, Amy changes into a completely different individual whom David does not recognize. She becomes self-absorbed and "always [wants] to talk about the people in [their] grade" (2), the ones that David barely associates with. Amy "doesn't want to see [David's art] anymore" (2) even though she knows the significance art has on her friend. Another side of Amy is that she is a very insecure girl. She feels the need to impress others, even if it is at the risk of losing her best friend. She is the type of teenager who "gets invited to every party... who [carries] gossip" (2), and is always around the popular youngsters at school. She has "stopped eating" (2) for she feels overweight. She has refrained herself from enjoying the large portions of snacks she would have with David. Her insecurities have brought her to become the stereotypical popular girl who "[goes] to every party [and] every football game" (3). The compulsion she has to try to fit in is due to the lack of self-confidence. In exchange for her popularity, she looses her friend, who has always been there for her. Amy has become a stranger to David.

David is the artist of the pair and is very attentive to details. He remembers the days when they went to the creek. To this day, he still has the memories of Amy's "long, tanned legs half wet and shiny, half dry with the cracking clay stripes and dots of an Aztec king" (1). As Amy becomes unfamiliar to him, he notices that she has become a woman, that her body is now curvy and lithe" (2) rather than the carefree, scrawny girl. He discovers that Amy "[has] not spoken to [him] at school, or dared to associate with him in public" (2). At first, David thinks he is being immature and paranoid, but he is in fact right, and admits that "he [lives] in the worlds that [he draws]" (3)

Amy and David’s personalities can be described as the opposites of the spectrum. Amy’s egocentric and insecure attitude leads to the loss of a friend who cares and loves her. David’s meticulous and sensitive personality makes him the mature one of the two, but unfortunately, he is also the one who is hurt the most.