I stopped by the snow-cone hut to see you but you weren't there, just some short-haired blond girl who didn't get my raspberry-vanilla-coconut-with-cream mix right (too much syrup, not enough cream). It was alright, I'd catch you later, and while I ate my dysfunctional snow-cone I saw us when we were 12, walking home in the snow, me with no coat and you with red cheeks and nose, and you were Batman to my Robin, and I remembered when it was a good idea to steal Christmas trees and vandalize Coach Holly's house with raw meat, and we thought we knew what it meant to be older and how being grown-up held secret adventures, and loud music that we didn't share with anyone else because it belonged to us, and nobody else was important enough to hear it, and the dirty jokes and bad words (some made up, some real).

And now while I write these words I try to determine if what I do is important, and if it really matters, and if Emily would underline it in a book or highlight it on a page, and tell me I needed to read it right away ... because then I would know it is.