We were outside kids. The kind who didn’t need plans—just a patch of woods, a few hours, and the unspoken agreement that something was gonna happen. If it wasn’t lighting shit on fire or building forts outta scrap wood, it was riding bikes like we were being chased by something invisible but real. And maybe we were.

Me and Kenny had that telepathic kind of friendship. Barely needed to talk to know what the other was thinking. He was funny without trying, deep without even knowing it, and loyal in a way that stuck to you. He had this quiet pain under the surface—same kind I carried—but we masked it with laughter, mischief, and weed when we could get our hands on it.

We weren’t running from anything specific, but we were definitely running. Running from silence. From questions we didn’t have the words for yet. From the dull ache that came from watching the adults around us fall apart slowly. We learned to read moods like maps. We knew when it was safe to speak and when it was smarter to vanish for a few hours.

That era was golden in a gritty kind of way. We didn’t have money, but we had freedom. We didn’t have answers, but we had each other. We talked about girls, death, music, and aliens like it was all connected somehow. There was something about Kenny that made things feel bigger than they were. Like we weren’t just messing around—we were learning the world on our own terms.

No teachers. No rules. Just instinct.

I didn’t know then how much I’d miss those days. How much I’d want to bottle up those summer evenings—the ones where the sky stayed orange just long enough for you to believe everything might turn out okay.

We were kids with dirty shoes and loud thoughts.
And for a minute... the world was quiet.