Telescope

The Mighty Awakeness of Us

Juno

We spent the afternoon sitting in the sun, enjoying life's beauty. We sat outside at a little white table, and I watched the way his bright eyes scanned the world of beautiful people and landed on me. They were so blue, and his smile so genuine, so real. 

He talked so easily about so much, but the most fascinating to me was the music. Something I'd been dying to know about after years of seeing the way he was constantly engrossed in a song. And the things he said about music, nothing about it was ordinary. I hung on to each of his words.

"Did you know, there's this one album that's supposed to make you trip? Wanna know why?" He took a break to sip his lemonade and stare at me. 

"Obviously."

"It's cause the lyrics are ancient spells. Allegedly," He said, slurping down the last bit of his lemonade.

I grinned. "Well, we gotta try it." I turned the straw in the glass, knocking into the ice. I had finished my lemonade a while ago.

"It'll be a helluva time. Here," He took my glass and opened the door with his elbow. "I'll be right back!" 

Once he returned our glasses and rejoined me, we walked around downtown, shoulders bumping, electricity shooting through my arm. We turned a corner by a parking garage, large and cement and so far above the ground. Even in the unrelenting heat of the late afternoon, we decided to climb the grimy metal stairs, winding upwards. 

Benny sighed about halfway up. "This is taking far too long. Come on." He grabbed my hand and started jogging upwards, starting to take the steps two at a time. I sprinted past him, my fingers still laced with his as I towed him behind me, suddenly needing to be faster than anything else in the world. And we were faster than anything, our hearts pounding in our ears, the cutting through the cold air. 

Before I knew it, we were bursting through the heavy door into the sunken sun on top of the garage. And then I was too fast, and there was nothing in the world that could slow me down. I sprinted across the empty pavement, losing Benny as I raced to the opposite side, head tilted upwards, grinning at the sky. 

I stopped as I reached the stone wall, and I looked down at all the people moving below us, so slowly like their feet were stuck in mud, their eyes trained on the ground. I turned and looked over my shoulder at Benny, blue eyes upward, and I realized that here, so close to the sky, it was just us. 

He was smiling a bit, and then his eyes traced a line from the sky and landed on my face, and he smiled more. He walked over, hands in his pockets, until he got to me. He was standing so close, staring at my face without saying anything. His eyes traced a line from mine to my lips, and for a moment I thought he was going to kiss me. I wanted him to.

Then, he stepped around me and stared out and up, past everything. I turned and looked at the thick, grey clouds floating in the distance. Up here, it was suddenly cold, wind blowing the slowly sinking sun deeper into the horizon. 

"The one sunny day," Benny said, then looked down at me. I could see something cross behind his eyes, and he smiled and looked out again. 

I ran a hand through my hair, suddenly missing the way his hand had felt in mine. "I like the rain," I said. "Everything about it." The clouds in the distance were dark, and it felt as though they were coming on very suddenly. It twisted something in my stomach, but in a good way. I liked the feeling, like an impending weightless doom. 

As I was thinking about the phrase impending weightless doom, Benny said, "The clouds look so.. foreboding."

A gust of wind sent chills down my spine. "That's 'cause we're so high up. We're looking them in the eye," I said.

He nodded, then pulled out his phone. He fiddled with it for a moment, then put on a song on full, shitty quality volume. He held his hand out dramatically. "Dance with me."

I laughed, then took his hand. He started spinning, like you do when you're a little kid. He was laughing, and I was laughing, and one of us let go cause suddenly we were spiraling away from each other. He stumbled, falling and rolling onto his back. I laughed, and he leaped up and started bouncing like a crazy person, throwing all 6 foot something of him into a whirlwind of arms and blonde hair and blue eyes. "Come on!" He shouted. I realized I was standing there, winded and staring at him with a goofy smile on my face. "You're making me look crazy."

"You're doing a bang-up job of that all by yourself," I said, and he ran over to me. He took my hands and started jumping again, swinging our arms up and down and I was jumping too and we were both laughing and dancing and completely free.  

We bounced around like crazy people as the sun shown down on us and the dark clouds loomed out of our minds. We went through a bunch of songs from his playlist, taking breaks to sit on the wall and talk and soak in the mighty awakeness of us compared to everyone below.

"Ice cream!" He said it with such urgency, I couldn't help but laugh.

"What?"

He tilted his head at me with a look like how dare you? "The best ice cream in the world! Hello? We need to get some!"

"Oh my god, you are so right," I said, voice completely serious. 

"Come along," He slipped his phone in his pocket, music still on, and grabbed my hand as we started walking back across the lot.

By the time we got to the ice cream shop, it was nearly sunset. We got ice cream (I got strawberry, he got mint) and walked around a bit more. Eventually, as the first stars appeared in the distance, Benny drove me home and dropped me off. 

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Okay! You guys, I'm so sorry for the delay and I'm so sorry the chapter is so short! I've been pretty busy, and in less than a week I start school again which will take up more time. I'll try to publish a few more chapters before then, and after as often as I can! Thank you for the support, love you all!