Adachi to Shimamura - Volume 11 - Chapter 8.2

But no, it was my senpai from junior high basketball. She was a year older than me, and the last time I saw her was probably at some point at the start of high school, so it had been quite a while. Nevertheless, I recognized her on sight, probably thanks to that bright blonde hair.

I amend my previous statement: apparently, I was the first to realize.

“Well, well, if it isn’t my kouhai!” I could hear hesitation at the edges of her voice.

“Can you remember my name?” 

She froze, which made me think the answer was no. But after a pause, or perhaps a loading screen, she spoke up: “It’s Shimamura, right?”

Well done. “Took you long enough.” 

“Ha ha ha ha ha! What can I say? I’m married to the job.”

She laughed wholeheartedly, without a trace of guilt. But the version of her that I once knew had never laughed like that. Or much at all, really. 

“It’s been what—six, seven years since I last saw you? If you met a kid when they were in kindergarten and they showed back up on your doorstep in sixth grade, wouldn’t you be like, ‘¿Dónde estás?’ or something”

“I mean, yeah, probably.” Pretty sure your Spanish is wrong, though.

“Just look at you now, too old to play with dolls…”

“Okay, you haven’t known me that long.”

“For that matter, I never dreamed I’d encounter you here of all places, Shimamura What’s-Your-Name.”

“Yeah, that’s fair. I wasn’t expecting to find you here either, Senpai.” 

Her entire existence had been erased from my mind. Thankfully her golden hair was so memorable, it all came rushing back in seconds flat. Seriously, how could I have bumped into an acquaintance so soon when we were this far from our hometown? Did the bullet train actually go straight, or just loop around in a circle when I wasn’t looking? Then again, our town didn’t have rickshaws… 

“Shimamura?”

Adachi tugged at my elbow. Times like these, why did she always pinch my elbow skin? There’s no fat there! 

“We were on the basketball team together in junior high,” I explained briefly. Well…actually, that was pretty much the whole story. Not a lot else I could say about her.

“Hmm…” Adachi offered her a tiny nod of acknowledgment.

“Whoa, it’s a pretty lady!” Senpai exclaimed. “So pretty, in fact, I’d love to have you as my kouhai, too.”

“Right,” Adachi replied dully. 

At this, Senpai let out a creepy little cackle—like the sort of laugh when you just remembered something. I would sometimes burst out laughing like that when I thought back to old memories. Though in my case, I was more subtle about it.

Anyway, it was starting to sink in just how beautiful Adachi was to anyone who saw her. Gazing up at her, I decided to play along. “Whoa, it’s a pretty lady.”

“Hweh?” Her face crumpled, and I experienced the mysterious phenomenon of the stunning beauty who could transform into an adorable creature at will. 

“It’s not a competition,” Senpai scoffed. “Wait, are you jealous, mayhap?”

“…Indeed I am.” Truth be told, it wasn’t that deep; I just wanted to try it out myself. Now I was starting to see how simple-minded I really was.

“So, do you and the pretty lady live around here? No, that can’t be it. You don’t have the smell of the city.”

When she talked about us like we were Beauty and the Beast, she made it sound like I didn’t fall under the beauty category at all. That was fine, though. The highest I’d ever been rated was third place. And Adachi’s compliments were so dramatic, they were in a league of their own.

“We’re on vacation. I’m guessing this is…your career? Not a side hustle?”

“Correct. I didn’t feel like there was a place for me at home anymore, so once I graduated high school, I was outta there. Luckily, I found some money, and one thing led to another, and now I’m a rickshaw driver.”

“Found some money…?” 

Playfully, she spread her arms wide as if to flaunt her dark indigo happi coat. The sunshine seemed to glide down each strand of golden blonde. It reminded me of the days when I bleached my hair…and how much everyone in my life hated it.

Our basketball team was neither skilled nor passionate, but Senpai played in pretty much every game. As for me and my bad attitude, I never played in a single one all three years.

“Hey, Shimamura. Seeing as fate reunited us here, why not take a ride?” 

She jerked her thumb at the passenger seat, and judging from the grin playing at her lips, I suspected she was hoping I’d feel too awkward to say no to an old acquaintance. I was split fifty-fifty between no thanks, have a good life and since you’re offering, sure. Thus, I decided to check with Adachi next to me. “What do you think? Wanna try it?”

“Your senpai…”

That wasn’t an answer, and the look in her eyes was rapidly going cold. She may have seemed more stable these days, but deep down, she was still the same girl. Did she really need to be jealous of my senpai, of all people? From my perspective, Adachi was getting way more attention, and I was…well, I wasn’t bothered much at all. But only because I knew what she was like. 

“We’re friends! Best friends! Come be besties with us!” Senpai reached out affably, her fingers wiggling like tentacles. But when Adachi shot her a look, she stopped dead. Reading between the lines, she began to backtrack: “On second thought, we’re not friends. I don’t even know her. Kouhai who?” Like trying to flip a fried egg only to throw the whole frying pan instead.

“I guess we don’t know each other, then. We’ll be going now.”

“C’mooon, isn’t it obvious? I wanna show my kouhai what I do for a living!”

Am I your kouhai or not? I gave her a summary of all my thoughts thus far: “You’ve really changed, you know that?” 

At this, she combed the hair out of her face and grinned. The look in her eyes had a wistful sparkle, as if to suggest I hadn’t changed much at all. “Yeah, well, I wanted to reinvent myself.” Laughing to herself, she headed back to the rickshaw like she’d decided we were getting in. 

Reinvent herself? 

While it was an amusing prospect to blithely ignore her and head to the bus stop, I could already imagine her chasing after us, dragging the entire rickshaw with her. “Eh, what the heck. Let’s give it a try.”

“Sure, but…I’m gonna be sitting next to you.”

“Huh? Yeah, I meant both of us… Oh, good grief, my dear Adachi-chan. I haven’t forgotten about you, silly.” 

Quit giving her all your attention, she was trying to say. I heard it loud and clear. Taking her by the hand, I headed for the rickshaw.

“Here’s a parasol for you. Sorry we don’t have a roof on this thing. And I hope you brought your own refreshments.”

Senpai reached into the back seat, grabbed a purple paper parasol, and handed it to me. The dry smell of the washi paper wafted up to my nose. As I took it and stepped closer, I realized there was a faint scar on her brow that wasn’t there before. It looked like a cut, and I could only imagine how it got there, but I kept my curiosity to myself. 

Hand in hand with Adachi, we settled into the red seats with some assistance from Senpai. Once we were secure, she ran around to the front. From behind, I could see her arms tense up and her waist muscles harden. 

“We’re ready to depart, ladies. Now where am I taking you? Got somewhere in mind? Or would you like the guided tour?”

I exchanged a glance with Adachi, then answered, “The tour.”

“You got it!” 

It was a bit unnerving to look down at the ground from a higher vantage point than I was used to. Then, as I was watching the scenery go by, I realized belatedly: I had no business expecting Senpai to remember my name, because as it turned out, I couldn’t remember hers, either. What was it…? I could vaguely recall that it was something unique, but nothing more concrete than that.

“I gotta say, Shimamura, you’re pretty careless.”

“I’m sorry?” 

Facing forward with her hands on the shafts, she chuckled. “You really shouldn’t get in without asking what it costs first. Eee hee hee!” She sounded like a little kid who just pulled a prank.

“Well, how much is it?”

“Three thousand yen for fifteen minutes.”

“Rip-off!” Fifteen minutes? We’d barely make it down the street!

“Good thing the two of you can split the cost. How does that saying go again? Joy shared is joy doubled; sorrow shared is fifty percent off?”

“Not sure that’s correct, but I get what you’re saying.” 

I opened the parasol and adjusted its position so a shadow would be cast over both of us. It dyed our skin as if soaked by purple rain. Most likely it didn’t deflect the heat in the slightest, but the purple made it look colder, at least. 

“I kind of like it,” I remarked, and Adachi smiled gently, her face painted in purple shadow—soft, pale, peaceful. All the things the old Adachi never had.

“Okay, folks, first up: here we have some ojizo statues.” 

Within moments, a…tourist attraction?…had appeared right next to the rickshaw’s big wheels: six statues wearing red caps and bibs. “Those are ojizo statues, all right.”

“Yep.” The rickshaw moved past without even stopping.

“Uhhh…don’t you have any anecdotes or trivia about them…?”

“No? I’m not from here, remember?”

“…Oooookay.”

“If you want all the nitty-gritty details, I can refer you to a different rickshaw after we’re done.”

“Great sales ethics.”

“Let me ask the pretty lady: Would you rather hear about the local places of interest, or stories about Shimamura in junior high?”

“Let’s not, actually!”

“Shimamura in junior high,” Adachi answered, leaning forward eagerly.

“Stooop,” I whined, shaking her by the shoulder. “Forget the past—let’s talk about the future, Adachi!” 

“It was the spring of her first year, and a teammate was yelling at her to ‘pass the damn ball.’ In response, young Shimamura What’s-Her-Name said, ‘Okay, how’s this?’ and flung it directly—”

“STOOOOPPPP!” How could she remember that trivial moment when she didn’t even remember what I looked like? 

Incidentally, it had taken place during our first training camp, and in response the girl kicked me, at which point it became an all-out catfight. Some teammate I turned out to be. I wanted nothing more than to take bitter little junior high Shima-chan, bury her in a ditch, and put a popsicle stick in place of a headstone. Problem was, judging from the look in her eyes, Adachi wanted to grab the brat’s hand and rescue her.

“Adachi, seriously, do you really want to hear about that?” 

“I’m torn… Part of me wants to know, but part of me is scared that once I find out, I’ll feel bad that I wasn’t there for you.” She pressed a hand to her chest as she confessed to this contradiction. I could understand the feeling, but…

“You don’t need to know about it, and frankly, I’m glad you weren’t there. I wasn’t a nice person by any stretch of the imagination.” If we’d met back then, we probably would have given each other bad vibes and a wide berth. 

“Oh? So now you’re a nice person?” Senpai cut in.

I pursed my lips slightly, giving it some thought. “Well, I’m making an effort.”

“Hey, that’s awesome!” Her face lit up like it was exactly what she was hoping to hear. “And yet the pretty lady’s got struggle written all over her.”

“Excuse me?” The impolite observation turned Adachi’s blank expression to ice. 

Ooh, is this the rumored Frigid Adachi? Should have known Senpai would have the power to lure her out. I’m definitely not that brave.

“I love people like you.”

“Excuse me?” Adachi repeated, her voice growing barbed. 

But Senpai kept on smiling like she wasn’t worried. At the same time, her cheeks were stiff from summoning the strength to pull the rickshaw. Her face was multitasking. Still, I was grateful to her for changing the subject away from junior high.

“Based on age, you and this pretty lady would be…in your fourth year of college now, right? Is this your graduation trip?”

“Something like that.” Technically it was more of a warm-up to that, but I wasn’t confident I could explain it to her.

“Are you friends from college?”

She was just making small talk, but truth be told, I was a teensy bit unsure how to answer. While I was hesitating, however…

“We’re dating,” Adachi replied firmly, before I could. 

Senpai came to a stop three steps before the intersection and looked back at us. When our eyes met, I raised our held hands in place of a response. Yes, we’re dating. 

Adachi was now at the point where she could say it without stumbling. I peered at her face in profile, and though perhaps it was weirdly patronizing, I admired her for being such a hard worker.

“Oh ho,” Senpai smirked.

“And what exactly is ‘oh ho’ supposed to mean?”

“I’m just surprised you’d ever love someone,” she said point-blank to my face—quite possibly her rudest comment yet. “I mean, you never had any crushes in junior high.”

“Sure I did… Well, something akin to a first love, anyway…”

“What?!” It was Adachi, not Senpai, who reacted with shock, and I quietly regretted letting it slip. “Sh-Shimamura…you had a crush on someone?”

“Wow, not you too! You guys make me sound like some unfeeling monster!” 

In my case, I was pretty sure it was different from a crush. Something about that woman just…appealed to me. But if that was what it meant to like someone, then sure, perhaps it was romantic. 

“The fact that I love you is proof that I’m capable of loving another person, so… Wait, why are you looking at me like that?”

Adachi was biting her lip with her face all scrunched toward the center, the way my little sister looked when she ate sour candy. But she didn’t need to explain it out loud when the word UNACCEPTABLE was written all over her face like a neon billboard. 

“Adachi, you look like you’re about to take a bite out of the first hamster that comes along.”

“What does that even mean…?”

I couldn’t think of an explanation, so I went to take a picture of her face to show her, but then she grabbed my phone to stop me. I tried playing tug-of-war with her for a bit, but it was so unproductive that I gave up. “Anyway, why are you looking at me like that?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, her expression still posing a threat to hamsters nationwide. “I mean…”

I hadn’t seen Sulky Adachi for so long that it actually warmed my heart.

“I wanted your first love to…be me.” 

“Sure, that would be great and all, but… Oh, but you’re still the first person I’ve ever dated, though!” I offered, hoping to reach a compromise. She nodded, but solely as a gesture of goodwill, because she only looked half-convinced.

“Interesting. So the misanthropic little girl I knew was a pure-hearted maiden on the inside,” Senpai remarked.

“Let’s not talk about it anymore. But for the record, my ‘first love’ was just someone I thought was interesting, that’s all,” I told her.

“And what a mild first love it must have been.” 

Her tone was pregnant with implication. Was she suggesting her first love was spicy? What would a “spicy romance” even look like? Like a burn you couldn’t get rid of?

“Junior high, huh… So who was it? Kidou-kun? Shinkawa?”

“Whomst?”

“Oh, c’mon. How should I know? Tee hee hee!” She laughed like a kid half her age. “But if it was a girl, then it might have been someone on the team with us. Oh, duh! It was totally me, wasn’t it?”

“As if!” 

Not to be rude, but this chick used to be a lot more normal, or at least, she took things fairly seriously. Her personality was so different now, I wondered if maybe she’d hit her head at some point. When I tried to pinpoint what had changed, I glanced to the side—and realized there was another radically different girl sitting right next to me. 

I guess people change.

Then Adachi noticed me looking at her. No clue how she interpreted my gaze, but her eyes began to fill with fear.

“Seriously, it wasn’t her!” I pressed, just in case. 

“Yeah, I figured. I was pretty boring back then.”

“I wouldn’t say boring. You just seemed to have a lot going on.” 

Senpai chewed on my opinion for a moment. Then her lips spread into a smile. “These days I’m trying to focus on having fun, but now I’m so busy that I don’t have time for romance. Life sucks, am I right?”

“Busy with work?” 

“I’m a rare breed, y’know, and I’ve got a pretty face to boot. Thank god I was born beautiful.”

“And with such modesty, too.” She wasn’t wrong, though. 

“Though I will say customers by and large prefer someone who looks like a local. Someone well-educated who knows the town—and it certainly doesn’t hurt if they already have a baseline of fame from… Well, let’s not get into it. My point is, good looks pay off. I mean, that’s how you hooked Shimamura, right, pretty lady?”

Senpai directed the conversation to Adachi. The two beautiful women stared at each other, blinking, and then…

“Is it?” 

Adachi turned to me to ask for confirmation. Was I in some capacity hooked by her pretty face? She always did have a hint of melancholy peeking through, which was what caught my attention to begin with, and it was probably a factor that kept me going back to the gym loft to see her. 

“Well, I thought you were pretty from day one,” I admitted.

The end of my sentence painted red across her cheeks like a brush, an effect that was especially bewitching under the purple shadow of the paper parasol. 

“I see…” 

Her voice rippled like a stone had been skipped across the surface of her heart. And those small ripples rocked me gently in turn. 

“Oh, um, same here. I’ve always…thought you were beautiful, Shimamura.”

“Third-prettiest in our class?”

“Number-one prettiest in the whole world.” 

When I gave her a little verbal prod, she responded with the equivalent of a shove, feet rooted firmly to the ground like she wasn’t about to give a single inch.

“Th-thanks.” 

To me it was an exaggeration, but to Adachi, it was a universal truth. When I contemplated this difference of viewpoint, it filled me with relief at the reminder that she was still here. 

“See? Won’t this be a nice memory to look back on later?” 

“Just like the memory of the respect I used to have for you.”

“And over here we have a very famous torii gate! Everybody passes through it, from couples to newlyweds to little grade schoolers on field trips! Follow that path straight down and you’ll find a shrine!” 

Suddenly, she started reciting canned lines like a proper tour guide. Sure enough, in the direction she indicated was a large torii gate standing tall in the center of the street, with large stone-carved guardian dogs flanking it on either side. And she wasn’t kidding about its popularity, either; a group of women, ostensibly tourists, were currently posing under it for a photo.

As I glanced around, taking in the sights, I spotted an entrance to the train station on the other side of a mini-mart. It wasn’t the same one we departed from, but it was an indication that we were looping back around to the station square. 

“It’s a classic photo op location. Each time I pass by, I wonder what would happen if I crashed my whole rickshaw straight through them like a bowling ball.”

“Um, I think you would lose your job.”

“Life is hard…” 

In the rickshaw, we crossed the street in front of the torii gate, and as I watched the flow of the crowd on the other side from my high vantage point, the lights seemed to blur my vision. It was surreal and entrancing, like seeing night festival lanterns during the day. Because we were up high, the sound of the wind rushing down the street was loud in my ears, but if I focused on the scent, I could faintly pick up what might have been the sea breeze.

Once we finished crossing the street, Senpai suddenly looked up. “Sooo, that’s the mini-mart,” she explained lazily, pointing at the building on the corner. Almost all of the paid parking spots were filled.

“Yes, we have those back home, thank you.”

“Seriously? That town’s getting too gentrified! By the way, ladies, your fifteen minutes is nearly up. Can I interest you in an extension?”

“We’ll be getting out.”

“Exit’s on your right! Make sure you have all your belongings, blah blah blah!” 

Senpai pulled over to the edge of the sidewalk and came to a stop, then ran around to the back to help us get out, still dripping sweat from head to toe. This time Adachi got out first, pulling me by the hand. Once we were back on solid ground, I closed the parasol and returned it.

“Did you enjoy the ride, madam?”

“Considering all I did was sit in one spot the whole time, there was a lot going on.”

“Great! Now if you could just circle all 5s on the survey…”

“What survey?”

“All jokes aside, Shimamura, I gotta talk to you real quick. And you gotta pay.”

“Oh, okay.”

If she wanted to speak in private, then I would need Adachi to wait here, and yet…

“And yet…” 

The pretty lady showed no signs of relinquishing her continued grip on my hand. 

“Look, I gotta go pay for the ride, and apparently, she wants to talk to me about something. Is that agreeable, my dear Adachi-san?”

“Talk about what?”

“Well, that’s the thing. I won’t know what it’s about until I talk to her.” 

Her fingers poked at mine like she was scolding them. Even when it was just an old acquaintance we’d bumped into by chance, Adachi never let her guard down. Perhaps the secret to her hard work was that she didn’t allow herself to grow complacent. 

“I’m telling you, it’ll be fine. Okay?”

“Okay…” 

I knew she wasn’t doing this puppy dog act on purpose, but it was still so evil.

After I somehow managed to get Adachi to wait out in front of a nearby second-hand clothing store, I walked over to Senpai.

“Like I said earlier, it’s 3000 yen.”

“Yeah, yeah.” While she was getting her wallet out, I noticed Adachi looking at us and offered her a smile.

“What’s her problem, anyway? She’s not worried I’m gonna put my paws on you, is she?”

“More or less. Let’s just say she can be a little jealous gremlin.”

“Right, right.” As we spoke, Senpai held her palm out in my direction. I paid the full 3000 yen, no friends-and-family discount in sight. “Y’know, she’s really something. Let me have her.”

“Ha ha ha…” 

“No, seriously. With your blessing, I’ll make my move on her ASAP,” she pressed with a straight face as she pocketed the cash.

“Senpai…?” 

“Real talk, I’m super into girls, too. She’d be perfect if only she was a little shorter.”

There was no indication that she was joking, either. You, too? I looked up at her. There seemed to be an awful lot of sapphics in my life. Maybe there was something about me that drew them in. But I digress.

Could I relinquish Adachi to someone else? 

My current life, minus Adachi, would equal…a version of me on the verge of collapse. 

Yeah, that’s not happening. 

“Well, you don’t have my blessing.” 

In this world, we could only give permission on our own behalf and no one else’s. With that understanding, I rejected the concept of another person touching Adachi. For my own benefit. 

Senpai heard the edge in my voice and nodded in satisfaction. “Then I guess I’ll make my move without it. In a world without permission, the ultimate seductress reigns supreme. Her name—”

“Hey!”

“I’m just messing with you. While I do enjoy stealing people’s girlfriends, I can tell that one’s a challenge I can’t handle,” she muttered with a self-deprecating sigh. “Loyal girls like her are never interested in me.”

“Well, duh. They wouldn’t be loyal if they cheated,” I answered a bit too seriously. 

Then she pulled out a towel and started wiping her sweat. “All right, I’m gonna say something selfish.”

“What? Uh…okay…?”

“Never take your girlfriend for granted, Shimamura,” she warned me as she mopped up the product of her labor. It reminded me of the times she’d casually strike up a conversation with me after basketball practice. “Not that I’d ever take my own advice, of course.”

“What?”

“I can’t be that kind of person anymore. But you need to be, got it?”

“Senpai…” 

Was it somehow connected to the faint scar on her forehead? Selfish indeed, to demand of me what she couldn’t do herself. But the fact that she warned me ahead of time was itself a vestige of her past self. 

“It appears that this is where our paths must diverge.”

“I didn’t pay for an extension, so yeah.”

Was it me, or did she just roll her eyes? “From here on, the two of you can go anywhere! As far as you like!”

“Sheesh, quit shouting!” 

“And if you get tired along the way, don’t hesitate to grab a rickshaw, all right?” As she grasped the shafts, her wrists bent like she was gripping a steering wheel. “Ideally at least four more times before your vacation’s over.”

“Do you only get paid commission, or…?”

“I’m just saying, it can get boring to walk alone. Now, time to find my next rider.”

She began to pull the rickshaw, and judging from the direction, I could tell she was headed back to the station square. As I gazed at her hair, shining brighter than the light absorbed by the big, silver wheels…

“Take care, Senpai.” 

I withdrew my usual goodbye in favor of another. She had only carried us fifteen minutes forward, and perhaps that was apt for a connection as tenuous as ours. But when she looked back over her shoulder, I saw a hint of junior high in her smile.

“Thanks for the ride! Have a good trip!” 

In the end, she played the role of driver to perfection, ending the moment on a high note. With a pretty face, it was easy to cut things short; this was something I’d learned through my relationship with Adachi. And as I watched her walk off into the brilliant blue sky, I finally remembered her name. 

“That’s right. I’d only ever seen her name on paper, so I said it wrong the first time. She gave me such a dirty look…” 

But today, I could look back on that memory with a smile. 

When I walked over to Adachi, she glanced at the retreating figure in the distance. “She sure was weird.”

“Yeah, I guess.” I already had two family members a lot weirder than her, so it didn’t really resonate. “I’m just happy she’s doing well for herself.” 

This time I didn’t say “have a good life,” and yet it felt like a permanent goodbye. But on the off chance I saw her again, I’d probably recognize that blonde hair anywhere. 

“Now, where to first? Souvenirs…? Eh, that can wait until we’re headed home.” 

For once, we were actually tasked with bringing gifts home. Before we left, a tanuki came running through the house to smugly offer me a 500 yen coin. Naturally, she wanted junk food. As with any money accepted from a tanuki, I kept checking to see if it had transformed back into a leaf, but so far it hadn’t. 

“Where do you wanna go, Adachi?”

“Wherever you are, Shimamura,” she answered without a moment’s hesitation, and once again I found myself admiring her conviction.

“But I’m already here.” 

When I offered her my hand, she took it gently, like it was a prized treasure. As usual, we both started walking at nearly the same time, each hoping to guide the other. 

“I’m kind of disappointed that there’s fifteen whole years of Shimamura I’ll never get to meet.”

This was apparently her review of the rickshaw ride. It felt like she was more or less saying she was too busy looking at me to care about the scenery, and it made summer’s color gather in my cheeks.

“Even though you’ll have all the decades ahead?”

“Two separate things.” 

“Typical Adachi.” 

She was so greedy, she wouldn’t be satisfied until she tasted every last bite of me. And since all it evoked from me was a smile, it was clear that I was a terminal case. Be it a familiar town or brand-new territory, she was right there by my side every step of the way. She was my Polaris, my guiding light, making my whole world sparkle… No, she was my whole world. 

“Lately, I’ve started to wonder if maybe I love you a lot more than I realize.”

As I spoke, without looking at her face, I made a decision. I started walking quickly, bent forward slightly so her voice wouldn’t reach my ears. Obviously our joined hands wouldn’t allow this, but nonetheless, I tried my hardest to escape. 

Roasting in the summer sun, my limbs felt so light. Where would we go? What would we see, and what would we remember? As we walked, it all began to pile up. Simply being with Adachi was enough to bury me in memories.

Praying that these memories would one day resurface, like bubbles filled with joy, I raced with her through a string of summers, each of them finite, yet seemingly boundless. 

Because I’d decided the two of us could go anywhere—as far as we liked.