YOLO he said that first summer night. A promise to the black starlit sky and to himself, because this was his summer and it would not be ruined by average. There would never be a summer of 2013 again, and he planned to make the most of it.
He looked at a star, and wished that this summer would be unforgettable. It’s the summer before he would have to plan his entire future. His last summer to just have fun and act like nothing mattered. He hoped to lengthen it. He was not ready for the sharp clutches of reality, where he is in charge, but then again not in charge at all, all at the same time. He could be in charge of this summer. He could hold onto those reins of sunlight and make the most of them.
He had a plan, pure and simple to make this summer the best yet. He had a motto, too: YOLO.
He stayed up too late at night, altering his sleep pattern, letting his brain rot with violent video games and slapstick YouTube videos. The sun would peek through his curtains and he wouldn’t move, because he had an infinite amount of Netflix videos that he wanted to watch. It was summer, there was nothing stopping him from doing so. YOLO.
His thirst for fun and adventure was insatiable. One can only spend so long guiding a pixelated character through a cubed world or watching a man travel through space and time in a police box before wanting to do something themselves. So he phoned his friends and they planned a road trip. West Coast. California.
It took a while but they got there. They don’t care about the gas money or care that they’re blowing money. They should have enough. Nor do they care about the fact that they were a thousand miles from home, in a big city, not a small town, and by the ocean, not a landlocked state. They were in California. They were free. YOLO.
This was L.A. A beach town. A bustling city, with so much to do, and so much to see. So much to explore and so many adventures to take upon. They had one lifetime to see it all, to do it all. And why not, because YOLO.
They were tourists so they did what any tourist does- they hit the beach. The perfect place to strut around shirtless and cook under the golden beams of the sun. The perfect place to get sticky from sweat and salt from the cool waves of the Pacific Blue. They tried to learn to surf, paddling fearlessly into the waves. They cheered each other on when one of them managed to stand and cheered louder when one of them wiped out- coughing up the foam. Then later, they’d pop open a can of ice-cold, fizzing coke. Their shades rested over their eyes; they reclined on that hot, grainy sand which stuck everywhere, all to check out the girls. The girls’ salt-sprayed hair cascading downwards in beachy waves, with perfect golden bodies and flawless legs.
YOLO, to heck with it he thought. Because he was tired of just watching when he could actually be doing something. So one day, when a girl in a skimpy bikini walked by, he lowered his sunglasses and winked. She giggled and waved. He bought her ice cream, while the other boys were left in the scratchy, burning sand, ogling the girls from a distance.
The next thing he knew was that he’d scored a date to Disneyland, leaving the others to wipeout time after time. Him and his beach babe talk to the Disney characters, tried out stupid lines that are always suggested on websites, just to see if they would actually work. They rode the roller-coasters hands up so many times they grew dizzy. They inhaled funnel cake and cotton candy, which was horribly overpriced, but at the time it was worth it. They took cheesy pictures that wound up super-grainy and overexposed which didn’t do the memory justices but preserved the memory all the same. This was their first date, most likely their only date. It was Disneyland: the place where dreams come true and they had one shot to make the trip worth it. YOLO.
The park closed for the night, but still, he wanted more time with her. And when he got a call from his friend, everything worked out perfectly. Beach party. Barbecue. So they went together to party. To have fun while it lasted, because they were to die one day; why not celebrate while they had the chance? So they said YOLO, and clinked their bottles of beer together, toasted their existence. They promised to do everything they possibly could.
