Where to start with us.
Well, Rosie and I met in first grade, on both of our very first days of school. It was lunch time. I stood in the cafeteria line with all of the other kids in my class, but unlike them, a sizable predicament awaited me. Do I buy the apple, or the chocolate pudding? Although it may not seem like it, this was an important decision for a six year old to make. I wanted with all my heart to make my mom proud and buy the apple (even though she wasn’t there, I wanted a clean conscience), because I knew it was healthy. But that delectable pudding was calling my name in a voice I nearly couldn’t resist.
As if she could read my mind, the girl behind me says, “Chocolate is made from beans, and beans are healthy. Get the pudding.”
I gave her a sideways glance and hesitantly grabbed the pudding.
I go sit down at the very edge of the table by the window, and she follows. We’re sitting across from each other. The girl is skinny and slight, with unruly cocoa hair that fell in curls down her back. Her silvery blue eyes stare knowingly back at me, her freckled cheeks and nose glisten a sunkissed bronze from the recently ended summer. To my young mind, she was the equivalent of a Victoria’s Secret supermodel.
Dazed and awed by her beauty, I ask, “What’s your name?”
Her chest puffs up with pride as she answers, “I am Rosalyn Violet Walters. I turned six last Wednesday, and my favorite color is light blue, like that cloud,” she points out the window, but I can’t take my eyes off her. It was more information than I’d asked for, but I wasn’t complaining.
Flash forward to the present.
Rosie and I are 16 now, wild and free. We’re flying 90 MPH down a dirt country road to the beach, the vaguely salty breeze whipping through our hair and adrenaline flowing through us like gas from a pump. Her stereo is blasting fantastic oldies like The Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan, and her personal favorite, Led Zeppelin. She’s playing this song as loud as the stereo of her red pick-up truck will allow,and it fills me with a near indescribable sensation, but I can tell she feels it too. Her icy eyes pierce my dull cerulean ones.
This is a song one can only fully understand and appreciate while speeding down an empty road with the most beautiful girl in the world on your way to the beach. The electric guitar courses through my veins like a drug, my heart beat paces with the rhythm of the drums, and the wailing vocals dig down to my very soul. An experience like that changes you as a person, even in the tiniest bit. But in that moment, united by that song, Rosie and I connected in ways that are unexplainable by humans still, I didn’t feel like Logan Reynolds. I wasn’t just an ordinary junior in high school that was in love with an extraordinary girl. I didn’t feel like I lived in northern California, I didn’t feel like I lived anywhere. I felt free, disconnected from all worldly things, because surely this was not a worldly experience, but one worthy of the rock Gods. Alas, the song ended, and the feeling dissipated. But like I said, it changes you, so I guess in a way it never really ends.
After the song ends and we’ve driven past the last stretch of dirt road before our special spot, we park her pick-up truck truck on a hill overlooking a vineyard to watch the sunrise. It’s beautiful; splotches of purple and pink, orange and yellow, bright stars still dotting the morning sky. I look over at Rosie, with her knees tucked up to her chest. Her curly hair is wild falling out of it’s side braid, and her Pink Floyd t-shirt and cutoffs give off a vibe that only she can.
“Read any good books lately, Rosie Posie,” I ask, dragging her old nickname out for a change.
She smiles slightly, her freckles popping off her cheeks.
“Seeing as I’ve depleted my book fund, I’ve only been rereading.”
I smile to myself. Classic Rosie.
“However,” she continues, “It seems that I had forgotten how brilliant Into the Wild was. While it is life-changingly depressing, it also plants the most amazing seeds of thoughts into your mind. In my opinion, the saddest part of the novel is how deep of a mind Chris had. He actually got it. Not many people really understand the essence of the world, and yet he’s gone. He wasn’t meant to stay and enlighten the world. Forget poison berries, society suffocated him.”
I loved hearing her go on like this, it was like I could finally get a glimpse into her head, so I prodded her further.
“Do you think you get it?” I asked.
She shook her head almost imperceptibly. After a moment of silence she says, “No. I don’t think I’ll ever be that smart.”
“Oh Rosie, you’re one of the smartest people I know. Don’t be so down on yourself.”
She looks at me sideways and says thoughtfully and slow, “There’s a fine line between realism and low self-esteem.”
I could feel the tension, so thick you could almost cut it with a knife. Rosie doesn’t like talking about herself. If she thinks something, she’ll most likely let the words tumble out of her supple peachy lips. But trying to get her to think about her, her opinion of her own mind, not a chance.
Wanting to dissipate the tension as much as I do, she stands up and says, “Race you to the cave!”
She starts running as I yell after her, “You’re on!”
Off we go, into the sunset.
