This is one story I’ve never told before. Not to anyone. It was just another summer night, but we felt like gods. The air stuck to my skin and filled my lungs with humidity. The bugs were out and viciously stealing our sacred blood. The pavement was starting to bother my bare feet, but we were still waltzing through the streets like rulers of this small town.

Our laughter’s echoes were carried by the empty street. I could hear the symphony of our lives playing loudly as we simply walked. The thuds of our footsteps. The jokes we exchanged. The rhythm of our breath. We were holy. It was just another summer night.

I hadn’t expected to leave my house, but when the sun began to set and the heat began to settle, things changed. My room seemed to get smaller and smaller as the hours passed. By eleven, it was a jail cell and I was plotting my escape when I heard a soft knocking on my window. With quiet delicacy, I guided the pane of glass up, opened the flap in the screen, and slipped through. As I closed and readjusted my window, I thought of how lucky it was that my room was on the first floor. Then I thought of how lucky it was my parents didn’t know about the ripped screen.

They were all waiting for me. We were a small collection of neighborhood kids that had formed out of fierce necessity. In a town like this, boredom begins to fester and rot the minds of adolescents during summer time. The unfaltering heat and endless hours create a kind of mental fog. The gripping haze recedes when combated with the kind of excitement that only comes from the outrageousness we create. Outrageousness like the kind we created that night.

I had followed them around my house and into the barren street. We didn’t worry about being caught out past curfew. We completely believed that our fearlessness prevented such from happening. Like bad luck would be intimidated by our foolish bravery. No ill-fated events would take arms against us.

“So, what are we up to tonight?”

Nothing.

Then, after a few minutes of heavy silence, “Let’s show her.” Someone grabbed my hand and dragged me forward. The darkness veiled my eyes and left my sight deprived. I could feel my heart also picking up pace. I wondered how anyone else could see.

The muscles in my legs were starting to feel a new kind of strain. A slight incline in the ground became noticeable. Is this a hill?

Everything started to feel like it was running around me and everything was covered in black and all the noises of the night began to blend together and the wind hitting my face was no comfort and this was worse than any fog because I was scared. Terrified because the person who started at the bottom of the hill was not the person climbing it now. Change had cut away the pieces of me with any common sense.

The one constant in that moment was my fear of the dark. No number of years could erase my phobia that arises when the sun sets, but the fear evolved. Every night I was lured out of my house. Every night my love of safety was challenged. Every night I moved farther away from my sheltered self. And every night I loved that distance more and more.

Have you ever felt scared of yourself?

“This is it.”

And there, resting at the top of this hill was a collection of stolen benches and tables from the park. They had set up a midnight picnic. We were all just trying to find a trouble kid’s paradise, so they put heaven on a hill.