Rubber gravel clung under my fingernails as I picked and threw it down in front of me. Behind us, the rusted swing set howled in the midnight wind, echoing high-pitched lullabies of childhood innocence. Under the light of the moon, the playground shone a darker gleam than I remembered. Perhaps I was just put off by the fact that my feet now reached the ground when dangling off the edge of the slide, or that I could push myself on the swings without help.
An hour earlier, The Boy I called my best friend had been speeding out of a 7-Eleven parking lot, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching the domed lid of his electric blue Slurpee which was resting in the center cup holder. I leaned back against the headrest, laughing, my head tipping forward every so often to lick up the streams of foamy red ice running down the side of my cup and onto my hands. The sticky sweetness dripped in between the cold metal of my rings but I didn’t bother wiping it away–not yet anyway.
“We have to drive closer,” The Boy said, his voice nearly drowned out by the wind whipping against open windows and the music screaming from the speakers.
“We can see it from here!” I called back, still grinning.
In between ghosts of trees appearing and disappearing in the swerves and swivels of his fast car was the moon, swollen and with a pinkened hue. It hung so ripe and low I imagined if I reached out to it, I could pluck it between two fingers and twist it free, like a berry off its bush. We would both take a bite out of it, watching each other relish in its pure sweetness, the effulgent juice dripping down our chins. We’d lick our lips, trying to reach every last glittering remain of moonlight clung to the corners of our mouths. We’d remember this feeling, this flavor.
This wasn’t a new activity for us. We often drove on nights we were bored and it was too late for any local establishments to welcome us in. I loved our routine. After the two minutes it took him to get to my house, I’d jump into the passenger seat and be met with whatever cool music he was blasting through the sound system. We never had a set destination. Sometimes we’d end up at a fast food drive-thru, other times we’d end up on his front lawn, laying in the grass with his dog zooming back and forth by our feet. Our nights were always easy—never forced. We didn’t need an elaborate plan to enjoy each other’s company. But one specific summer night felt extra special, almost magical. The moon entered a phenomenon called a Strawberry Moon, an anomaly that only coincides with the summer solstice once every twenty years. Staying in wasn’t an option that night.
The car screeched to a stop on the side of Bloomfield Avenue, the usually busy street turned lonely and quiet in the late hour. The Boy swung open his car door then slammed it shut, calling to me so I would get out as well. Our Converse pounded against the rain-slicked pavement as we ran to the middle of the street– an island separating us from the rest of the outside world. I pulled out my phone, and he took an old-fashioned professional camera out from the canvas bag that was sitting in the backseat. Two clicks sounded in unison as we stared dumbfounded, jaws to the floor and eyes to the sky.
***
After admiring the pictures we’d taken, we ended up at the old playground behind the town police station. Sitting parallel, criss-cross-applesauce, we stared across at each other’s familiar faces. His curls, blackened by the night, were illuminated into a warm auburn by the dim yellow street lamps that lined the perimeter of the parking lot. I’d seen those curls since we were kids but hadn’t really gotten to know them, beyond exchanging summer reading prizes at the library or passing glances in the elementary school hallway.
Our big friend group came to be because one of my friends had a crush on one of his. As they grew closer, so did the rest of us, merging into one big group. We sat together every day at the same red circular picnic table, tucked in the back corner of the courtyard with a straight view of the windows looking into the science wing. Even in the winter months, we’d bundle up in hats and scarves and rely on cafeteria hot chocolate to keep us warm. Outside of school, we’d go to roller rinks, bowling alleys, and town carnivals, always on an unofficial mission to set those two up. They ended up dating for nearly two years. Even after they broke up, we all stayed friends. For some reason, I had always been closer to The Boy than I had to any of our other friends.
He was different from my other guy friends–less surface level, less predictably boyish. There was something about the way he laughed–a humble smirk instead of an obnoxiously loud guffaw–and the way he watched my mouth and my eyes as I spoke that made me want to keep talking. He paid attention, and I paid it back. That’s how we ended up that particular summer night.
It had been a while since the thrill of our sugar-sparked sky-chasing adventure earlier in the evening. Our wide smiles faded with the light of the moon, which had moved further away, and was no longer so inflamed or blaringly bright. By then it was past midnight, and we had been exchanging stories of our families–about being glass children and about bad memories of our mothers and fathers–for so long that my throat ached. Staring out at the night, I felt a weight settle in my chest, and before I could think to stop myself, I blurted out, “I don’t want to grow up.”
The Boy stared back at me, his green eyes steady with understanding. He knew I meant more than just those simple, cliche words.
“Me neither,” he replied. “I’m never gonna get old.”
My mind flashed forward a hundred years. We’d look exactly the same–no gray hair, no stretching or sagging skin. We’d still be on the road, traveling to places where the grass stretched wider than our field of vision and the stars weren’t shielded by a veil of pollution making its way down from the city. We’d hike impossible mountains and sit at the top, and instead of wishing upon stars from the ground, we’d look out below at the world triumphantly. The scars from our childhood would still trickle across our skin, but by then they’d have faded, like a path in the forest that’s been swallowed by the blanket of fallen leaves and growing weeds that come with time. We’d sit and talk all night, under the rosy light of our fifth Strawberry Moon. We would laugh and reminisce about our first, remembering the sweet taste of blue raspberry and cherry on our tongues. By then, we wouldn’t remember that tears had dripped and salted our cheeks from discussing his father’s illness and our mothers’ mistakes. We’d only remember how the moonlight glittered across our cheekbones and the tips of our noses. We wouldn’t reminisce on how young we’d been back then, because we still were, and we vowed that we always would be.
