We’re riding in the darkness, going nowhere in particular.
We’re off the bike hanging off the edge of a mountain and laughing.
It’s like I’m back home again in Libertyville, laughing and loving life and feeling whole again.
Doesn’t matter what Lily and I are doing or not doing.
I feel young and fun again, and this whole train wreck of a life that’s happened in Solitary suddenly goes away.
I’m lovesick and she knows it and laughs and leads me on.
“What do you want to do when you’re older?” Lily asks me.
“Where do you want to live?”
“What do you dream about?”
“Who do you want to be?”
She’s curious and interested, and I talk more than I’ve ever talked before. The thousand thoughts in my mind are suddenly free to be uttered out loud. It’s magical. It’s freeing.
I don’t think about midnight being near or school being tomorrow.
I hold her hand and tell her what I think about her, what I really think. She smiles as if she already knows all of this. It doesn’t bother her. She doesn’t feel the need to say anything back or react. Or even thank me. She knows and it’s okay.
“I’m serious,” I say.
“I think about you all the time.”
“I’m slightly kinda crazy about you.”
“You just make me feel better.”
Lily takes my hand and kisses me. A sweet, soft kiss, but one that still leaves me wondering. It’s a short kiss, and I tell her this.
“I know,” she says.
“You send me mixed vibes.”
“I know.”
“You doing that on purpose?”
“Maybe,” she says, then is off talking about something else.
My head is soaring, and this is just another school night for a senior.
Yeah right.
The silence and solitude are suddenly my friends, suddenly helpful in keeping the rest of the world away from my Lily.
This night, unexpected just like the curly-haired blonde walking through the door of my summer school class, soon ends. And I tell her good night. Wanting more.