The Night We Didn't Sleep

Maya's text flashed on my phone screen at 2:47 AM: rooftop. now.

I should've said no. I had AP Chemistry first period, and I'd been functioning like a zombie all week from exam stress. But Maya was my best friend since sixth grade, and she only got this way when something was actually wrong.

Throwing on sweatpants over my pajamas, I started running through the quiet suburban streets. The October air bit at my exposed arms, but the cold felt grounding. Real.

Maya sat on the edge of her apartment complex's rooftop, legs dangling over the edge. Above us, the suburban sprawl's light pollution drowned out most stars, but the moon hung full and silver.

"Remember when we were twelve and my brother told us there was a bear living in these woods?" she asked, not looking at me.

"The one that supposedly ate neighborhood cats?" I sat beside her, letting my feet swing too. "We spent the whole summer being terrified of basically nothing."

She finally turned to me, and the moonlight caught the wet tracks on her cheeks. "Connor broke up with me."

My stomach dropped. Connor, who'd been her first real boyfriend, her first everything. "Oh god. Maya, I'm—"

"He said I'm too intense," she laughed bitterly, wiping her face with her sleeve. "Can you believe that? Me, too intense."

"He's an idiot," I said firmly. "You're literally the most real person I know."

She leaned into my shoulder, and we sat like that while the sky started lightening. A robin began its morning song somewhere below.

"Remember last summer?" she said suddenly. "When we went swimming in Miller's Pond at midnight and got caught by Mr. Henderson?"

"And he lectured us about being delinquents for twenty minutes while dripping wet in our underwear?" I grinned. "God, we were so stupid."

"We were alive," she corrected. "That's different."

The first sun rays painted the horizon pink-gold. School started in three hours. I was going to be exhausted, probably fall asleep in chemistry, and regret everything by lunch.

"Ready?" Maya asked, standing up and extending her hand.

I took it, and we began the long descent back to reality, back to lockers and rumors and the exhausting performance of being teenagers. But as our feet hit the pavement, I squeezed her hand tighter.

Some things, like bears that don't exist and friends who show up at 3 AM, you don't outgrow. Some things, you carry forward.