I’m an 18 year old from California in the South Bay Area. I graduated high school in 2020, and I was bummed that I didn’t get a traditional high school graduation just like every other high school graduate. Well, we all didn’t. But hey at least we graduated. In my town, although some places have recently reopened it’s still a dangerous area. Many of my neighbors don’t obey guidelines and they still throw parties. Sometimes there’s gun violence. Because of what a cruel police officer did to George Floyd, there has been many protests in my town.

As I drove home from work one day, I saw a beautiful girl, her parents, her siblings, and their puppy move in to an apartment next to mine. I started wondering, why would anyone want to move here. In the middle of a pandemic and in an area that isn’t safe. I tried figuring out whether meeting her would or wouldn’t be worth it.

The next day, I went to work. I work at Starbucks on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:30am-4:30pm, and on Fridays from 9am-12pm. Since we’re in a pandemic, there weren’t much employees, and we are required to wear face masks. The same girl who moved in eventually got hired to work at Starbucks. As we got out of work early, we eventually started speaking.

“So this is the Bay Area.” she said.

“Yeah, and you just moved in?” I told her.

“It may not seem safe here in this town, but trust me. I lived in a much worse place before I moved here. I’m from Florida.” she said.

“Damn, I feel sorry.” I told her.

“Yeah, well at least I got out of this town. There are too many fake friends, and too many covid cases too. Also, we mainly moved here because of my dad’s job offering and because I’m entering community college here I took a gap year.” she said.

“You must be lucky to have a traditional graduation.” I said.

“Ugh, I’d rather have a zoom high school graduation alone or with real friends than a traditional one with fake friends.” she said. “I’m Amelia by the way.”

“Cool, I’m John.” I told her. “When do you work?”

“Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 9am-12pm.” she said. “Hey, you got TikTok?”

“Yeah.” I said and gave her my TikTok.

It was the Fourth of July, and not many people are celebrating for two reasons, COVID and how unsatisfied they are with the American government. Also there are too many illegal fireworks so there wasn’t a point in celebrating. My parents are still having a grill outside. I decided to have my friends over Teddy, Kenny, and Berry. We all socially distanced and had our masks on and drank some Hennessy. When I suggested to make a TikTok video, Teddy and Berry were arguing about the drama that happened before shelter in place, and this lead to Teddy and Berry stop being friends with them. Since all of us were drunk we couldn’t give them a ride home so I had to call an Uber for the whole group to go home. All I gotta say is that this was the worst Fourth of July ever.

I sat down outside the house looking at the fireworks through the neighborhood. Amelia also joined me outside.

“Fireworks are pointless this year. 100% of them are illegal.” she told me. She sparked up a blunt and took a hit. She rolled up another blunt, sparked that one up, and passed it to me. I took a hit of the blunt. The weed strain was so good.

We were stoned as hell, and she took me in her house without getting caught by her parents and the rest of her family. We ordered some pizza, some soda, and some hot Cheetos to binge watch Elite on Netflix, which is a really good show. It was a night we couldn’t forget. She was really there for me when I was in my hardest times and I’m grateful for that.

So most of our summer was spent socially distanced, making TikToks, at work together, smoking weed, and going on late night car rides. We even started college together in the fall, even if that meant taking biology and history together through zoom and the whole first year online.