"My youth.
My youth is yours."
With six words of a chorus
I remember truly.
I gave my youth.
My youth was yours.
And then I watched it die
In your hands
Shriveling
Withering
Decomposing
Into nothing.
My youth was yours
and I forever lost it when you left.
October 12, 2014
"Happy birthday!" Jordan and I holler at the top of our lungs, incurring laughter
Josh awaits us in the parking lot with a handful of his friends, laughing at our antics. He turns 20 today, and in typical Josh style, when I asked him what he wanted to do, he decided on ziplining. Of course. So here we are, carrying bags of food smuggled from the cafeteria and driving a few hours away to zipline from the top of a mountain.
"Thanks, Rach, Jord," he says, squeezing my arm in appreciation.
Everything I do for him, it's all to earn the look that he's giving me now--eyes crinkled in a smile, a dimple on one cheek, devastating grin. Everything I do is to make him happy.
A handful of his friends have gathered around us. I recognize Drew, his roommate, and a friend or two from the lacrosse team as well as five guys and girls I haven't met before. We load up into two cars, Josh riding shotgun in my car with Jordan, Drew, and one of his lacrosse buddies in the backseat.
I start the car as Josh pulls out a paper map to guide us to our ziplining location. I reach for the radio, and Jordan flies forward from the backseat.
"No way are you getting control of the music," she exclaims, plugging in her phone and playing Twenty One Pilots. "No Carrie Underwood or depressing folk music on Josh's birthday."
"Shouldn't he get to pick the music, seeing that he's the birthday boy and all?" I ask.
"You just want him to pick because you guys like the same kind of music," Jordan grouses, butt now firmly returned to her seat between the guys in the back.
Josh laughs roughly. "Play what you want, Jord. Have you guys met Luis?"
Luis, the lacrosse teammate sitting in the backseat, flashes a bright smile. "Luis Acevedo."
"I'm Jordan, and this is Rachel," Jordan says, attempting civility for once.
"Oh, I've heard all about you guys," he answers with a laugh, his voice rolling with a slight Spanish accent.
"That can't be good," Jordan answers, no doubt remembering a few of our less than illustrious moments.
Luis responds, "Nah, I've only heard good things, I promise."
"You didn't have to lie for us, Josh," Jordan responds, a snarky grin forming at the corners of her mouth.
"I didn't lie," Josh answers with a grin. "I just didn't tell him everything."
I slug Josh in the shoulder and laugh.
A few hours in the car and a security briefing later, we're standing at the top of a mountain looking at a zipline descending far below us. The scenery around us is gorgeous--soaring evergreens, craggy rocks, the scent of pine needles--but I'm too ensconced in my fear of heights to notice. Though it's not cold out, goosebumps are pimpling across my skin and I'm simultaneously sweating through my light jacket.
"Alright, who wants to go first?" The instructor asks, standing next to the line with a harness in one hand.
I already know who's going to volunteer. "I'll go," Josh says, raising a hand lacksidasically and stepping up to the front of the line.
YOU ARE READING
The Definition of Time
RomanceA Wattpad Featured Story! "We were together. I forget the rest." - Walt Whitman He defined time. Every event in my life is now defined by the time we spent together - the Before and the After. I still remember the day we met, freshmen in college, al...
