Post work, on just a few hours of sleep. We're driving in my car with Cody and Mason in the back and listening to the AVPM soundtrack and Party in the USA and getting Dunkins at 12:30 in the morning. We're wrestling in Jess's front yard and she tries to pull me away and holds my wrist for all of five seconds and I stop breathing and you kiss the shock away. We're on the couch in the basement and Jess is drinking alcohol and you rub my leg and laugh at something to do with razors and I don't want you touching me anymore. I drive to Boston just for something to do and you worry because you think I'm going to get kidnapped. It's 1 AM and I just can't say no to you. You take away all my vices and the only one I have left is you.

He was going to do something tonight. I thought he and Jess were talking about drugs so I finally got his phone from him and then I still thought they were talking about drugs. And then I read one of his texts to her saying something about pressure and then it clicked. I'm such a dumbass.

Former Self

The clock on my dashboard is 10: 31 PM and I'm pulling into my parking spot, and grabbing my shoes that got drenched when I stepped in a puddle climbing into Katie's car. The wet pavement and the scattered debris of nature remind me of walking with you around your cousin's street, while my heart beats too fast and my body feels too warm and I feel claustrophobic in your huge room, away from everyone else. I still hear all our laughter ringing in our ears, see all of our friends crammed into Katie's tiny car as we make prank calls, feel the cold and then the warmth and then the pain. This is the earliest I've been home in recent memory, the longest I haven't seen you. But then I turn on my phone and I get a text message from you, sent at 10:05 PM, simply saying, "Wish you were here."

This is what having the world at your feet feels like.

one in the same

I feel like a lifetime has already passed, when in fact we haven't even reached graduation day yet. We have three more months of this. We have three more months of spending every day together, of having fires and camp outs and pool parties and spontaneous trips to Hampton at 11 PM. Of spending my entire paycheck on Dunkins and listening to bad music and singing along to it. Of not sleeping and jumping on top of tents and walking in circles until 2 in the morning. Of creeping on your neighbor's prom pictures and falling asleep with my head on your chest and giving you a heart attack by going 100 mph and weaving through traffic on 93. Of waking up with your favorite song (which I havent heard in a week) playing in my head, just to tell you about it and you say that you were listening to it last night. Of watching people you don't know graduate and walking back to the car in the middle of the hardest part of the storm and getting beyond drenched.

And as I write that last sentence you text me out of the blue with, "My pants are still wet."

Brand New

Every one of my 16 mosquito bites (17, since you count my tattoo every time) reminds me of you- of trampolines, of obnoxious boys who make admirable attempts to get along with me, of gas station food, of never being able to keep my shoes (sandals) on for longer than five minutes. And every single day this week has been nothing less than amazing, despite the whisperings, despite the comments that turn the moment from natural and comfortable to awkward and weird. I could spend every moment with you: getting lost on the way to Newburyport; ice cream at 9 PM; falling asleep on your bed. I'm so excited that I have all of this to look forward to, for the rest of the summer.

Defiant

Just looking at the back of your head as you watch for oncoming cars gives me butterflies. I could spend the rest of my summer doing this with you.

You open the door for me and we turn around the corner and there he is- giving me that look of a friend from long ago. But you don't know him, you don't know about ice skating and kissing and broken contact lenses and dropping out of school. He is buying a bouquet saying "It's a Boy!" and he is telling me about his job at the bank, and I realize exactly how far away my worlds used to be, before that world- the world with him- fell away and you replaced it instead. And just moments before we were joking about keying his car, and now he and I are discussing banks and I keep glancing at the bouquet like it might explain to me who it's going to, and why. Those two worlds eclipsed for a brief moment, and turning to you, I leave the brush with the past behind.