I sit on the edge, my legs dangling into the darkness. The world is still and quiet beneath the starless sky. You can't hear the sounds of the traffic, thirty feet away (and thirty feet down), as if the street doesn't exist at all. Because in not thinking about things, you can make them disappear. Can't you?
In not thinking about the past month (or three, or nine, depending on how you count it), I can make them vanish in a plume of smoke. And suddenly, sitting with you on the roof of a Subway, legs dangling into the darkness at 1 a.m., is just another star in a list as long as the sky of things we've done and places we've gone that we probably shouldn't have but don't regret. Another thing we've done and place we've gone that our parents don't and won't know about. Because when we're together, we're magic. And magic means we don't get caught.
And back when we were magic (or are we still? It feels that way, tonight), we were still exploring and climbing things and going places just because we knew we shouldn't, leaving our sparkle all over school, up and down the street behind (and below) us, on construction sites and rooftops. Our sparkle haunts me, shining from the corners of once familiar places, those gleaming memories of Places We'd Been When We Were Magic standing in stark contrast to the black and white of How Things Are Now. Back When We Were Magic: before you were too tired, or too mature, or too busy to explore; back when you were magic and I was a child and I loved you too much to not come along and climb so high, no matter how terrified I should have been. Back when we were magic, I never worried about falling, because magic means you'd catch me, no matter what part (my body or heart) was in free fall.
And so, with my stomach (or is that my heart?) in my throat and the still night spinning around me, I close my eyes, feeling your warm hands on my shoulders pushing down gently with what feels like the weight of the world.
Your chest presses against my back and your arms circle my waist and I can feel your heart and mine speeding in tandem (mine irregular, as always) as you worry I might fall and I consider jumping.
Because it's just too perfect. Even though there are no stars and it's much too cold for summer (especially because the shorts I'm wearing were only meant to last through 8 p.m. and it's now 1). It's exactly as I'd imagined it would be, and exactly as I'd remembered it had been. And I am so perfectly happy, because it's so perfectly magical and so perfectly perfect.
And I want to jump, because if you caught me, it would mean the magic is real.
And I want to jump, because if the magic doesn't exist, I'd rather not either.
And I want to jump, because no matter how much I wish I could believe in magic, children grow old and everyone realizes eventually that magic only exists in fairytales. And for the past month (or three, or nine, depending), my life has been anything but.
"Careful, sweetie." Your murmur a honeyed whisper in my ear, sweet as the kisses I can still taste on my lips. "I don't want you to fall."
Because I won't catch you, this time remains unsaid.