Young

John drove right out of town, until he was going across the desert plains of Arizona into the middle of nowhere, and then he was opening the trunk of his car and telling us all to sit in the back. It was warm, the moon was full, and I felt invincible. Becca was tucked under my arm, her head on my chest, red liquorice in her hand. It was her favourite.

John got to work on lighting a fire, ciphering some gas out of his car with a tube to kick-start it. The fire roared to life and then we were all cheering. Jared introduced Amy to all of us, who was a pretty girl with blonde hair and a light splattering of freckles across her nose. She resembled Becca in a lot of ways.

Becca asked John to put The Smiths on because they were her favourite, and then he was rummaging through the glove box in his car until he found the mix CD that Becca had made for him. He slipped it into the player and turned it up as loud as it would go. We all huddled around the fire, holding each other, laughing, singing, drinking, and admiring the stars. Marianna started scolding John for drinking and then he just looked at her and told her she was the biggest pain in the ass. Just as she was about to slap him, John caught her hand with one of his, and cupped the side of her face with his other one, and then he was kissing her.

At first, Marianna started slapping at his chest to get him off of her, which was really quite a sight to see, and then she just stopped fighting him. She kissed him back. The rest of us just stared at them, all thinking the same thing – why hadn’t they done this sooner? We all started hollering at them and wolf-whistling and Marianna flipped us the bird, her lips still connected to John’s.

Amy and Jared were dancing together on the other side of the fire, looking as adorable as ever. Jared hadn’t bothered to tell any of us about his mystery girlfriend, and then he’d just shown up with her and surprised us all. Garrett was attempting conversation with Kelly, who kept progressively drinking until she was so drunk she was actually dancing with him in ways that I don’t even want to describe. John and Marianna disappeared into the darkness somewhere.

I looked down at my girlfriend, who was singing along to The Smiths and staring into the fire, a smile on her face. I was sure that if I were to take a picture of that exact moment, I would be capturing pure happiness. I kissed her on the nose and she giggled, scrunching up her face, before she tilted her head upwards to kiss me properly on the lips.

We broke apart, and then we were both just staring at each other, and she was smiling, and then she whispered that she’d never felt this way with anybody else. And then I kissed her again, and told her I loved her, because I did, and she took my hand and we got the others, and we ran after John and Marianna.

We were all screaming at the top of our lungs as we ran across the hot desert sand, the moon lighting our way. Garrett and Kelly were hilarious, tripping over their feet as they ran, hollering and wolf-whistling the whole way.

When we did find John and Marianna, we all collapsed in a heap and lay down on the desert floor, looking up towards the sky. Kelly started smoking a cigarette and we all watched the smoke disappear in the night sky among the stars.

“I feel infinite,” Becca said, quoting her second-favourite book. We all agreed with her and kept looking at the stars, thinking that that moment was perfect, and we’d probably never feel this young again.