We stood in front of her bathroom mirror with a cup of red Kool-Aid.
“Where are you going to put it?”
My friend smoothed out her hair. “I think it’d be cool in my bangs.”
She took a paintbrush and stroked her hair bright red, the color of her checkered flannel.
As the sun went down, we increased the music’s volume and filmed each other dancing in the dark, our silhouettes barely visible on the grainy footage. We were ridiculous, and we didn’t care. We modeled glow sticks as jewelry and took photos, capturing colors of neon green and pink against the night sky. Fireflies followed the patterns we made with our glow sticks, and our eyes gleamed with the reflection of fireflies. I caught one and held it between my palms, watching it crawl in circles. It flew away, lighting up the sky like a spark from a firework.
“Hide! I’ll find you,” she said while running into the dark of the night. “1..., 2..., 3..., 4...”
I hid between the bushes, lying in the dirt like a corpse, waiting.
“Ready or not, here I come...!”
As her footsteps beat through the thick grass, I stayed still and leveled my breaths. I saw her blonde hair through the leaves. Her back was facing me, and I ran. I ran fast.
She turned her head, her hair flying off her shoulders. I slowed, unable to keep my pace, and she caught me.
We fell onto air mattresses under the stars and told stories until our eyes drifted and closed.
