Abandoned Summer

The clear plastic "G" sat in the passenger seat next to me. "Try Our 3 New Angus Choices" was now "Try Our 3 New Anus Choices". We sped away from the McDonalds like idiot teenagers on a midnight ride.
Something was in the air that night. Youth, if that's what you want to call it, was running in the gutters. The angst we thought we had all lost came rushing back like a shot in the night.

I struggled to hear the conversation Brian and Alex were having in the front of the car. The melodic music of someone I had never heard was absorbed by the back of my head. I gave up on trying to enter the conversation and instead sat back and looked out the window. We passed streets I had passed many times and old back-roads I seldom turned down. I saw flashes of memories that once controlled my mind. Incidents and people who now seemed foreign...something my mind tends to do with the past. The sounds of the car and the music and the voices seemed to twine together as one in a beautiful symphony of life. The dark marks on my shorts continued on to the top of the tan line on my knee. I was reminded of what took place earlier that night and smiled to myself...I let myself slip into the fresh memory...

Brian and I jumped out the car, me fumbling with my shoes on the way out. Alex sped the car up and we both darted towards the sudden red neon. Brian jumped on the front hood and I climbed on the back windshield, my hands finding their way through the open window to the interior handles in the roof of the car, locked in anxious excitement. I looked around nervously, the newly finished residential road spotted with a few homes under construction. Movement pushed my body against the car. Dirt from the back of the car left streaks on my leg and pants. Alex hastily turned up the soundtrack to the escapade and sped down the road.
I had the better end of the car, Brian slid around the hood laughing and screaming until Alex sprayed windshield wiper fluid in his face. Then there was mostly screaming. I leaned my stomach against the back, lifting my hands free into the wind. I shouted into the sky, closing my eyes and wishing the wind would lift me into the the stratosphere. The car lurched and I was pushed to the roof of the car. I questioned our childish actions for a moment but let myself fall back into youth. I rested my head on the roof and stared at the blur of houses and streetlights. Life is so simple in moments like this. It was all clear, set out before me. It happened again, it hadn't happened in a long time...In the rush of the wind and music and laughing I saw the face of God. Then the car stopped and it was my turn to ride the front.

...I managed to hear talk of some girl Brian was interested in through the symphony of sounds. He needed a good girl. If anyone deserved one it was Brian. I wanted one too.
I finished off the rest of the Mexican Coca-Cola we bought and watched my shadow dance against the opposing car door fabric. I noticed my silhouette and saw myself in a way no mirror had ever reflected. I saw my wants, I saw my desires, I saw my friends, I saw my faith, I saw my family, I saw love. Gratitude trickled down my spine, collecting at my fingertips, numbing my mind. I closed my eyes.