Jongin and I strip down to our underwear, we walk straight to the edge of the water and I begin to nervously shake. I can only see the dark vastness of the sea, the reflection of the moon is far away. I feel like I’ll be swept away if I let the water touch me. 

Jongin holds my hand “It’ll be okay.” 

I look down at our hands and appreciate how much better they look than when he was holding Soo’s hand. His palms are soft, a little clammy (probably from the alcohol) and the beautiful bronze color of his skin looks golden with the moonlight, my own pale skin looks like ivory. 

I take a deep breath and step into the water with jongin. It’s cold, numbing my other senses till I can only focus on the freezing waves reaching up my legs.  Jongin gives my hand a squeeze and my heart beats a bit slowly and much more calm. 

“On three?” Jongin asks, urging me to go deeper

“One” 

The water passes my knees

“Two” 

It’s up to my waist

“Three!” 

We submerge into the darkness. 

The water does in fact clear my head, it’s cool and the effects of the drugs are on the back burner. Soo joins us and we all just swim around, whooping and hollering, cheering. We swim for a while, long enough for all of us to start to feel sober. I start to like Soo a bit more, she’s sarcastic and a little mean but it’s all good natured. 

“So hold are you?” I ask, floating on the salty waves. 

“Nineteen. You both are eighteen right?” She replies, gently moving her arms up and down, as if she were making a snow angel. 

“We just graduated this night” I laugh, graduation already feels like a lifetime away. 

“Congrats” she rolls her eyes sarcastically but her tone is genuine. “You both going to college?” 

“I’m going to a private university, Jongin is going to community college” I say before dipping my head into the water, pushing my hair back. 

Jongin swims over “What about you Soo, you go to Long Beach right?” 

“No. I’m in culinary school.” She answers with a snort 

Our conversation goes on like this, the three of us drifting along the waves, we question each other’s futures and confess worries. It’s the kind of talk you’re supposed to have with friends but never get around to because in any other circumstances it would be embarrassing. Soo tells us about how her actual name is Kyungsoo and she goes by ‘Soo’ because kids used to in school. Jongin admits he’s worried he won’t be able to get a decent job because he thinks he’s stupid. I keep my deepest secret to myself, I tell them I don’t really want to be a doctor but I don’t know what else to do. It’s not exactly a lie, I do want to be a dentist. 

After a while we swim back to shore, sand sticking to our wet skin, I try not to look at Jongins briefs plastered to his skin. Soo shimmies into her flowy black dress, sitting on her denim jacket. Jongin and I awkwardly try to pull our pants up our wet legs. Soo sits and laughs at us as she pulls a dark red and black pipe out of her purse “You guys wanna smoke?” 

Jongin pulls his baggie of weed out his pocket “Here pack it with that” 

Soo just nods as she crushes the buds with we fingers and packs the bowl. There’s goosebumps on my skin, the water dripping from my hair feels like ice melting above my head, I automatically scoot closer to Jongin whose using his phone to light up Soo’s fingers so she can see what she’s doing.

Soon after we’re toking up like it’s the sixties. Soo gets a little giggly and Jongin turns into a chatter box. I focus on the waves. Everything  feels so magical and spontaneous, a true ode to youth in the way we lean on each other and just bask in the moment. 

In fact we were all so caught up in the moment, we didn’t notice the police officer until he was shining the light in our faces.