It’s four in the morning and I’ve just gotten out of Veronica’s car.
Three hours before I had texted her and asked if she wanted to go for a drive. I didn’t know where to and I didn’t care, just as long as I was out of the house. I brought a pack of cigarettes I keep hidden in our junk drawer at home, put on my best friend’s sweatshirt, and said goodbye to my dog in a whisper.
Veronica’s car is a mess, but I find that most girls’ are. There are Styrofoam cups left abandoned in the passenger seat, vegan food wrappers everywhere and countless receipts from our local pizza joint. When I open the door, she’s jamming out to a girl band I don’t know the name of, freshly dyed ombré twirling all around her like a curtain. I tell her ‘hi’ and climb in.
She drives us to her new house that’s completely empty aside from the boxes they’ve slowly been moving in. It’s where she and her dad will live, and it’s a lot nicer than what I expected from a suburban home. There’s not only one shower in the master bathroom, but a tub too. I tell her I’ve decided I’ll be taking all my baths there from now on. We ogle at the middle-class American luxury our families could never have afforded when we were kids.
After she showcases her new bedroom, the generously large basement and her code-activated garage door (code activated!), we go to Steak ‘N Shake. She’s vegan, and I’m not eating meat right now (aside from seafood) so we both order onion rings and fries. I also decide on a mint shake which is something I’d been craving for a hot minute. It tastes sweet on my tongue. It’s late nights like these when I forget my sorrows in a vinyl booth.
But we don’t forget our sorrows – we reflect upon them. She talks about boys – I talk about men. We discuss the tragic lives of Edgar Allan Poe, Van Gogh and Fitzgerald like we knew them personally. We compare literature and recap the short stories we favored in high school. We talk about our f*cked up childhoods and how we were affected by them as “adults” (a term that doesn’t sit well with either of us). She’s an English major and I’ll be going for world history, so our interests are similar yet contrast enough to challenge one another. She hates Picasso and I do too.
Three hours later we sit in her car at my driveway, contemplate the beginning of the universe, and say our goodbyes.
The time is 4:00 a.m.
I am twenty-one years old and I am alive.
Author: Mikaela Dault
Email: [email protected]
Author Bio: I write about music and adventures. Born and raised in the Midwest. Dog mama. Folk enthusiast. Lover of 80’s movies.
Link to social media or website: Instagram @mikaeladault
