The first time, obliv­i­ous to the world.

Dab­bling in aca­d­e­mics, de­vel­op­ing so­cial prowess -

we were fresh­men in high school.

The next time, en­ter­ing the world.

Com­pleted man­dated course­work, ma­tured con­sid­er­ably -

we were grad­u­at­ing.

Our paths never crossed.

Two years later,

and here we are.

Wednes­day

The sun peeks into the win­dow, re­veal­ing the car­nage of the night be­fore. A mu­tual friend's party. We sit on the couch, still ine­bri­ated, ex­chang­ing hel­los. You tell me su­per­fi­cial de­tails about your sum­mer, about the time spent work­ing in Chicago. I re­count my days spent in Nashville, shar­ing mean­ing­less sto­ries.

The next thing ei­ther of us know, it's two hours later. And you've told me about your fam­ily, your school, so far away, and, well, your im­mi­nent death. You have cys­tic fi­bro­sis. You aren't sup­posed to live past thirty-five.

We're twenty.

You didn't want to tell me, the whiskey thought oth­er­wise. You al­most died in high school. Twice. You no­tice the tears welling in my eyes, I'm an open book, you tell me not to worry. You didn't die, you run cross coun­try at your uni­ver­sity. Your lungs are fully func­tion­ing de­spite all of the odds and his­tor­i­cal data and doc­tors' pre­dic­tions. You're happy, you're un­afraid. Is your death in­evitable? Whose isn't? You're ready to go to sleep. My school mail­ing ad­dress is en­tered into your phone.

You're gone when I wake up.

Sat­ur­day

The day­light faded to black hours ago and I'm swept away in a friend's car to a wed­ding re­cep­tion.  We know no­body. We dance be­neath paper globes and Christ­mas lights, tak­ing ad­van­tage of the wan­ing crowd and the open bar.

It's two in the morn­ing and I'm dri­ving your car as you play DJ, we're on an ad­ven­ture, you are the nav­i­ga­tor. Through wind­ing roads and open fields we reach our des­ti­na­tion; I've never been here. The banks of the Mis­souri River, the route to the is­land is flooded, rag­ing, dan­ger­ous. Toes in the water, lit by a full moon, you apol­o­gize for the other night. You in­sist it was self­ish and weird, too open, too per­sonal. You sug­gest we'll make it even if I spill my life story.

I talk and you lis­ten. At­ten­tively. I triv­i­al­ize my fears, down­play my am­bi­tions. It's quiet for few min­utes, the water's un­even rush­ing is enough.

This isn't fair. You told me every­thing, I have noth­ing to tell, my ac­com­plish­ments are min­i­mal.

Then I talk, say things I have never even ver­bal­ized to my­self. I admit my true goals in life, my true feel­ings to­ward the mun­dane, lin­ear path that seems to have been set for me. I let slip se­crets, feel­ings of in­ad­e­quacy. I feel light.

I taper off and you di­gest for a minute, shades of em­bar­rass­ment color my face. But then you tell me with such con­vic­tion that I have po­ten­tial and owe it to my­self to go for what­ever it is that I want to do, and that I think too much, and that I de­serve bet­ter than what I have. I'm float­ing.

Then you say let's go for a drive, there's a me­teor shower tonight.

At four in the morn­ing, we're tres­pass­ing on an old farm through light­less, ex­pan­sive fields. The night sky is our own. We laugh, we sing, we count stars and wince at uniden­ti­fi­able noises in the dis­tance. Po­lice? Coy­otes?

It doesn't mat­ter, it couldn't mat­ter.

I think of liv­ing with a set date of death, I think of dis­re­gard­ing the words of doc­tors, par­ents, gov­ern­ment and all other au­thor­ity. You're en­tirely free, un­teth­ered. De­lib­er­ately liv­ing and only tak­ing in­ter­est in what you can di­rectly con­trol.

As your car flies from my dri­ve­way I en­vi­sion you as a mys­ti­cal bird fly­ing into the early morn­ing.

I am, and have al­ways been, ter­ri­fied of birds.

Tues­day

The fra­grant smoke flows out of the hookah in a dingy base­ment as you bound down the stairs.

It's been for­ever since we've seen a clock, but it must be three in the morn­ing. You're leav­ing for school in two and a half hours, for school and then Eu­rope - you're leav­ing home for at least a year. You felt com­pelled to come over.

The group awk­wardly rem­i­nisces of high school days, the only shared mem­o­ries and com­mon ground we have any­more. You're oddly quiet. The time comes for me to leave and you re­al­ize you're due at the air­port in thirty min­utes.

Car-side, you give me a mix CD and a firm hug, a promise of a let­ter to my col­lege box soon. You don't have a set ad­dress yet, your phone doesn't work at school, you've evac­u­ated the trap­pings of so­cial media. You take off, we turn in the op­po­site di­rec­tion at the main road.

The four lines of my ad­dress in your phone is all that con­nects us.

That, and a car­di­nal landed on the table next to me -

usu­ally I'd move, but I just watched.