It's Saturday, the last real day of Spring Break and I'm at work for an 11 hour shift. The week sped by; it was a sun-soaked blur of crowded interstates, drug deals in Cambridge and Ipod's on shuffle. Thursday we took a trip to the beach, stopping in southern CT to ask for directions and to take a bathroom break. My long-time friend Jackie and I waited outside so I could have a cigarette, as Jill and Nick wandered inside a fast-food restaurant to relieve their bladders. I lit the bog as Jackie turned to me and spoke, "Ever since Kindergarten, we were the good kids - the smartest, the most motivated, the most involved. Now we're stoned sitting on the hood of a car in a Wendy's parking lot in Pawcatuck, Connecticut and I have no idea how we got here," she paused, gazing up at the clear, azure sky before sighing, "What happened between then and now?"
Eyes closed, I took a long drag of my Camel Light, her words fermenting in the corners of my mind. I sat up and opened my eyes - and suddenly Jackie was 5 years old again, a mess of freckles engulfing her small face and her thick, brown curls tossing in the wind. I looked into her big blue-grey eyes and I could almost hear her childish laugh echoing in a strange, yet familiar distance. I stared straight into her 5 year old eyes and I saw everything.
I think I always knew that the two of us would someday be standing together facing the end of the world. And there we were, on that April afternoon, more than 13 years later, acting like nothing had changed. To onlookers we were nothing but loitering, pot-smoking, nicotine addicted juvenile delinquents. To eachother, we were the same little kids we'd always been, laughing in the sunlight and dreaming of summer.
What happened between then and now?
