There’s a certain kind of sadness that comes out in night-time car rides.

It’s 2am and you’re exhausted from the entire repetitiveness of school, homework, and contemplating whether or not you are doing what you love or just what you were told you were good at so you stuck with it because your self-worth comes from praise. You’re going through a Mcdonald’s drive-thru because it’s the only thing open and you want some shitty food because it matches your mood. The lights from the menu blind your eyes because they’re accustomed to the dark roads but you need to read the menu to make a decision. Do you get the Buy one Get one for $1? The Fish-filet? The 10 pc chicken nugget meal? Which one will make you feel the most and least shitty without absolutely breaking your account?

You don’t decide fast enough and get what you always order instead: 2 cheeseburgers and a medium fry. You pull up to the second window because no one is working the first one because it’s 2am and the McDonald’s employees are exhausted from having to deal with customers like yourself coming in at 2am. Why are you coming in at 2am in the first place?

So you pay the $7.67 which you’ll later regret because maybe your mom will need the money for the bills or perhaps you’ll need it for a rare tornado despite the fact that there hasn’t been a tornado in your area in God knows how long.

You’re given your card back along with a greasy brown bag that contains the equally greasy food. You pull into a parking space in the nearly empty lot (there’s a 2002 Nissan Xterra a few spaces to your right) and sit there. Your cheeseburger is cold and the bread is stale and the cheese isn’t even melted so now you’re eating a cold, stale burger with a slab of American cheese which is all you taste. Then you take one particular bite and realize you forgot to ask for no pickles. You hate pickles. The fries are just as cold and instead of being warm and feeling like a nice hug you taste only cardboard and it hurts going down your throat. You didn’t buy a drink because you got scared you’d need the extra $1.62 in case you got hit by a bus and needed to pay off the medical bill, even though you know that realistically $1.62 would do next to nothing. So now you’re sitting in your busted 1999 Honda Civic at 2am in a McDonald's Parking lot with a scratchy, dry throat from cold fries, a shitty cheeseburger with pickles, and a pending $7.67 in your bank account. Fuck.

-E-

There’s a certain kind of rage that comes with realizing at 1pm on a Tuesday that the Catholic Church is shit. The question “would you want to be a saint” was staring at you on a lined piece of paper that the 40-year-old religion teacher handed out. Years of Catholic education have prepared you for this question time and time again. She’s assuming you’ll say yes.

You did too.

You’d heard the stories of the people who died rather than give up Jesus’ name. Lawrence who was roasted alive. Peter who was crucified upside-down because he couldn’t die the same way as the Man himself. So on and so forth we were told from the ripe age of five that we would have to die just like them or else we would burn in the fiery pits of hell with no family or comfort whatsoever. Because at five we were old enough to be killed off for the sake of a Man whose name we couldn’t even spell.

You had wanted to be like them. You would fantasize about standing before a crowd and being asked by a powerful leader to renounce your faith. You can hear your family's sobs if you focus hard enough. They're begging you to comply, not wanting to see their own blood be spilt upon the ground. If you looked back, you'd see them reaching their hands out to you in a feeble attempt to drag you away from it all. But the soldiers would stand their ground and shove them into the horde of people, drowning out their cries. You’d stand up as tall as you could, and despite the outcry of "yes," you'd stare into the eyes of your persecutor and say “no.” And then you would be mauled to death by a lion. Or even better, crucified! And then you’d become a saint and would perform miracles in Heaven, which in your head is clouds and a nice white guy that talks a lot and Elizabeth Swann from Pirates of the Caribbean because she was so pretty and cool so why wouldn’t she be there? And of course, let’s not forget the entire wardrobe from that Wizards of Waverly Place DS Game that you love. Because again

You were five.

So now you’re sitting in a cramped classroom with the temperature at 50 because the school is too cheap to spare $100 a month to turn it up a couple degrees. You have in your power a chance to live up to everything that your teachers taught. Seal your fate with a #2 pencil you found on the floor and this 10-point essay that you’ll throw away as soon as you get your grade back. And so, with one word, it is at that moment where you became anew.

No.

-D-

There’s something therapeutic about driving 80mph down I-275 with Holy Ground by Taylor Swift blasting in the background. On any other day, you would be holding onto the grab handle saying the “Our Father” despite having not prayed in years because you remember that crash in the Silver Hyundai that resulted in your family having to get that cheap ass 1999 Honda Civic. Or perhaps you’d be asking your friend to turn down the music because those talks your father had about ear-drum safety after a big 6-wheeler truck would blast its music so loud you could feel the bass vibrations through your entire 10-year-old body really stuck with you.

Fuck that.

You can barely hear anything between the song, you and your friend screaming the lyrics, and the wind clawing its way in the car and through your hair. You’re cold since you didn’t bring your black denim jacket because it’s always hot and you’ve never needed it before. But you don't care because the cold isn't on your mind right now since it'll distract you from the fun that you're having. Besides, it’s not like you planned for this to happen. You both were only going to go thrifting. But it’s never only something. Instead, it was only thrifting, Target, grabbing your friend who lives 40 minutes away because 40 minutes isn’t really that far and they’re basically on the way (they are most definitely not on the way), stopping by a gas station and everyone pitching in for gas because holy shit when did your friend’s White Kia Soul (A.K.A. the Toaster) have only 30 miles of gas left? Then you went to get boba tea using money that you all would regret spending later because you don’t really have the money for a Thai Tea with Golden Boba but it’s a reward for getting out of the house that week so really this money was saved up and you deserve it. Then, the mall close by that you all have been to 100 times but you might as well make it 101 because just maybe they'll have something different this time (they don't). Now it's somehow 11pm but how is that even possible because you guys had only gone thrifting? The concept of time is something no one on a friend-high can ever grasp.

Your other friend went home, so it’s just the two of you left in the car and you’re having the time of your lives. Your words are drowned out by all the noises overlapping in the Kia, but yet you both answer each other perfectly as if you were having a conversation at a Sunday afternoon picnic. You’re talking about how rebellious you are and that this is the best night of your lives and that you need to do this more often.

And then your friend turns down the song and points to a house that’s coming up as you exit the highway.

It’s a large two-story house that takes up an entire plot of land and then some. The outside of it is decorated for Christmas. And not just some white lights and a cute little wooden sign that says “Happy Holidays.” There’s a giant set on the roof that consists of a light-up Santa in a sleigh with 8 reindeer and Rudolph pulling him as he waves back and forth to onlookers down below. The house is lined head-to-toe in multicolored lights that flick on and off in a certain pattern as if it were a giant airport tower that was directing planes on where to go. Each window (there are 8 of them) has a giant wreath hanging from it with what seems to be pinecones and mistletoe. The giant white double doors consist of their own separate ones that are twice the size of those on the window.

And then there’s the lawn.

Think of every single Christmas decoration that you see at Target, not Walmart, Target. It’s as if the people living there bought out the entire stock and placed it in their front lawn.

To say the least, if the house wasn’t a dead giveaway that the people were rich, the decorations certainly were.

You and your friend are both stopped in front of the house staring at it in silence. And it’s then that you realize that no, you won’t do this more often. In reality, you both have been branded as a pleasure to have in class. You work hard trying to keep good grades because you both thrive off of academic excellence. Anything less than an A and you both are freaking out and thinking what you did to be smited in such a way.

Neither of you have a home to go back to.

Instead, your friend has a one story house where anger resides dormant, ready to awaken at any moment just as the roof that is teetering on its last few hinges before it caves in.

You have an apartment on 8th that currently has mold festering along the walls that you know is affecting your health, but can’t be helped besides some DampRid and bleach.

On top of that, as older siblings, you both have jobs to do. Laundry at 1am in the room where anal beads and weed linger, watching your siblings whilst making Tostino’s Pepperoni Pizza Rolls, and trying to maintain the peace between your parents who really should get a divorce, but stay together because its healthier for kids to have both parents. You simply just don’t have the time. There’s a nostalgic look in both of your eyes for something that never was but could have been in another life.

Your friend starts driving again, this time a respectable 35 mph because you both silently agree that you need to soak up these last 12 minutes together.

The windows are still rolled down. The wind hits your body once more.

You're cold.

-E-

There’s something both enchanting and devastating about being a hopeless romantic. Because there you are watching the Me Before You scene where Will gives Emilia the bumblebee tights and you’re sobbing. But you aren’t sad because you’re upset. Well, you are.

At 18, your only romantic experience is the time you realized you were bisexual at the Captain Marvel premiere because holy shit Brie Larson is super pretty and you realized that wasn’t a straight thought. But when have you ever had a straight thought?

Because you realized you always had an obsession with Elizabeth Swann since you were five. You thought you just liked her because she was a powerful female character in your favorite pirate film series. It was straight to constantly talk about her and think about how pretty she was and want to be her.

No, you wanted to be with her.

And then there was intentionally turning your entire focus away from the Victoria’s Secret store in the mall because of all the ladies on the boards. It was indecent and scandalous you had told yourself at 13.

It turns out, it’s not straight to get nervous and flustered around pretty women in lingerie.

So to fix your lonely heart, you’ve put on one of your favorite comfort movies. And now you’re sobbing while holding your giant cow squishmallow as Me Before You continues to play on your Motorola with an annoying crack on the screen dividing the characters and making the entire situation worse. Snot and tissues cover your poorly made bed because you just haven’t been able to bring yourself to fix it the past week after dealing with your mother passively saying in that southern way that you looked fat in the outfit that you mistakenly had shown her out of excitement.

You want to just reach in and shake some sense into Will because he can’t just leave Louisa. He loves her. But you know that there’s nothing you can do from your curled-up fetal position. And so you’re going to have to watch Will decide his fate. And you’re going to have to watch Louisa cope with his death. And that breaks you.

But you're also happy. You’re happy for Louisa even though you already know that they won’t be together in the end. Because at that moment she has love. Will isn’t dead yet. He’s there, right by her side, celebrating her birthday. She has someone who shows how much he cares by remembering the fact she loved those tights when she was little and pulled some strings for her to get an exact pair made despite the fact that they were discontinued. And you think that they are ugly with what she's wearing and will clash with most of the outfits she’ll wear throughout the movie. And you tell yourself that the bumblebee tights wouldn’t go with any of the unfolded clothes in your drawers or the ones hanging by a sleeve on the rack. Who would even want to own a pair of tights like those? What about pink? Or black? Those go with a ton of different colors you tell yourself as you wipe your runny nose with one of the used-up tissues next to your head and squeeze your cow a little tighter.

You would give anything for bumblebee tights.

-N-

There’s something about sitting on a torn-up green couch with three roommates while cheering on a bearded dragon that feels like home.

You never thought you’d like bearded dragons. But Ralphie has just made his way into your heart as he scurries his way over to your fourth roommate, who has placed a worm by himself to have Ralphie come to him. You still don’t like worms, of course. You’ll never touch one of those for as long as you live. But you love the way Ralphie perks up and slides across the tile to chomp down on the little beast. So, you suppose you’ll put up with them for his sake.

Because, how could you not, for little Ralphie?

Plants of all different shapes and sizes decorate the living room that for the past 3 years of different roommates had remained barren and old. The smell of Patchouli and basil linger in the room, dispersing the dust smell that used to fill your nostrils whenever you stepped into the dorm after walking up five flights of stairs because the elevators were broken again.

There’s something about the way your laughter echoes throughout the entire living room of the dorm, with squishmallows taking up most of the couch to the point you have to strategically move them around to make room for all three of you. But you don’t mind the mound of them because being squished by both them and the left side of one of your roommates is comforting. And you don’t mind the shouts from all of you, which you otherwise would find overwhelming and scary if you were back with your family. But instead, the noises are more than welcome, because it isn’t like a commander shouting orders to his subordinates as they prepare for war. It’s like when there’s 10 seconds left in the World Cup and the star player for the underdogs makes the winning shot that has everyone jumping out of their seats and hugging the stranger next to them. It’s standing in the pit at your favorite singer’s concert when you are shouting out the lyrics that you know by heart and they look at you and smile. It’s meeting for coffee with a friend that you haven’t seen in years, but are able to easily go back in time to when you both were 15 as soon as you catch a glimpse of each other.

There’s something about the way in which the room brightens with the shitty fluorescent lights that the school provides that reminds you of bumblebee tights. Because there’s a smile on everyone’s face as “Friday I’m in Love” by The Cure plays on the TV in the background while Ralphie is held up by your roommate like Simba in The Lion King. There’s your other roommate’s Strawberry Ouioui from ItemLabel named Razputin sitting on the ledge of the TV stand perhaps judging you with its beady little eyes that have fallen out more than once. Soon, your own Ouioui collectible will be arriving, and it can join Razputin on the ledge of the TV and judge you all as your mental health relies on this animal that probably doesn’t even know its own name. But it’s too late in the evening to be thinking like college students. Right now, all of you are 20-year-olds who don’t know exactly what you want to do with your lives. But you’ve at least got each other.

So you may not have the perfect family life. You may still be single and haven’t had the hopeless romantic relationship that your 12-year-old self dreamed about happening in college. You may have a beaten-up 1999 Honda Civic that is on its last legs. And dammit, you still have a hard time asking for no pickles on your McDonald’s cheeseburger.

But you’re here tonight, learning to love bearded dragons and laughing with the newfound family that you’ve made.

There’s something about now that's good enough for you.