We haunt the Taco Bell parking lot on 42nd St. Not literally, of course. As much as I love sinking my teeth into a cheesy gordita crunch, I know that if I was untethered from my earthly body, I'd want to travel further than the fast food joint three blocks from where I grew up. 

But we're still ghosts of a certain form, specific to the 21st Century. It was a hot July afternoon and we'd just come back from swimming at the man-made reservoir that we called The Lake  just outside of town. Our toenails were filled with mud; our hair and faces flecked with sun-baked silt. It was the last time we'd go swimming at the lake and we knew it. But instead of saying that, acknowledging the magnitude of this final trip, we papered over our grief with anger. You snapped at me for driving recklessly when the front right wheel of my 2005 Hyundai Accent pinged the rumble strip on the side of the highway. I told you that you were a sell-out, one of "them," when you put Top 40 radio and sang along to a popular song. I pretended I didn't know any of the words when I knew them all.

The lake was packed with other kids like us, newly-minted high school graduates about to be vomited into "The Real World," that nebulous catchall phrase for fledgling adulthood. I knew nothing about mortgages, about sex, about building a resume. Spending a Tuesday afternoon getting sunburned and floating in a muddy fake lake suddenly seemed irresponsible. With a diploma in hand, I would have become the kind of person who cared about melanoma and credit scores.

We splashed into the lake and for a brief couple of minutes, I felt free again, unencumbered from the looming and irreparable changes coming in the next months. I let the cold water sweep me up in distraction and plucked underwater weeds with my toes. I closed my eyes and thought about when we used to come here as kids with our families. When "best friends" meant shared whispers about what boys we thought were cute. When our matching necklaces, each one half of a broken heart, were priceless treasures.

But soon my toes were curling in shame as I heard whoops of teenage laughter, and opened my eyes to see a selection of our classmates, wrapped in string bikinis and slathered in spray tan. They looked so much more adult than me, like they got "it," whatever it was. I stretched my one-piece away from my stomach and let the Lycra fill up with air as it slowly snapped back.

You waved at them and asked me to swim over to chat with Brittany and Tiffany and Kelsey and the rest of them because you also "got it." Your waterproof mascara stayed flawless, even after I had splashed you. 

"C'mon," you said. "Don't be weird."

Don't be weird. You might have asked me to dunk my head in the reservoir and breathe underwater. I should have said, I want this time with you. I'm going to miss you. I wish we weren't drifting apart.

But instead I said, "Whatever, talk to the fucking popular kids, sorry you're here with me, and it's so awful for you."

And you rolled your eyes and swam away while I treaded water and sulked in a marshy clump of weeds, pretending to be watching for wildlife.

Eventually you came back and you suggested we go to Taco Bell because you were hungry and it was getting late and didn't a Baja Blast just sound incredible?

I smiled a bit and navigated my way back to shore, strategically yanking my bathing suit down and up, trying to stay as covered as possible before pulling on my basketball shorts and tank top.

You knew what you were doing with Taco Bell. When I got my license, we drove there all the time. The novelty of shouting our orders and receiving back an incomprehensible blare of static never seemed to wear off. Taco Bell was so bad for us; it was something our parents wished we'd replace with vegetables. Every time we went it was like we were getting away with something. Our nacho cheese rebellion.

We drove back from the lake in silence. I refrained from snarling, "How are the plastics?" and from sobbing hysterically if I let myself remember you were going, remember we were falling apart.

We sat outside and my arms stuck to the plastic tables that had been baking in the sun. You got a bean burrito and a small Baja Blast, and I ate my feelings in the form of a large Dr. Pepper, two crunchy tacos, and two deluxe Chalupas. I missed the shared thrill of fast food and drive-in adventures, before you outgrew me for Boones Farm, weed, and the backseats of pickup trucks.

I was wiping the sour cream from my chin when you said, "Oh my God, the Google van!"

Before we knew it, the van was gone, but it still captured us, a piece of my soul living on as an online spectre at the corner of 42nd St: grimy, hungry, desperately sad. My wet hair covers most of my face, but if you enhance the picture enough, you can still see a whisper of sour cream on the back of my hand. You look beautiful, staring down the street, away from the Taco Bell, towards something as yet indefinable but inevitably better.

Sometimes I see your mom at the supermarket and although I never prompt her, she tells me you're in Santa Fe now and Doing Great. You're engaged, you're thinking of applying to law school, you're saving for a down payment on an adorable custom craftsman.

We haven't talked in years. I don't have you on my social media. I don't want to see your diamond solitaire or your rescued chihuahua; but mostly, I don't want you to see my one-bedroom apartment, eight city blocks from the Taco Bell on 42nd St. 

But I still drive by, on my computer, and look at the ghost of us at the Taco Bell until I am ready to choke on nostalgia and regret. And sometimes I digitally drive the streets of Santa Fe, wondering if there's another ghost of you out there, around a corner, in a coffee shop, or floating in a pool with your perfectly manicured hands shading your eyes from the blinding, blinding sun.