Happiness

It was raining. We were in Golden Gate Park at the Tea Garden. We sat outside on the terrace under the pagoda dome. We watched the rain. It was loud rain, almost too loud to talk. It made us smile. We were in love again. And we were young. We were drinking tea and eating colorful little cookies surrounded by small square tables filled with disapproving old people. Women mostly. We could feel their eyes when we kissed. We were out of place because we were young, and when we kissed, we were all the more out of place, and the old people sat forward speaking in solemn whispers with their foreheads almost touching. This, too, made us smile. This made us giggle. It’s hard to kiss when you’re giggling, but I didn’t want to stop. I wanted to go on kissing and being happy, though I knew what was coming; that I would wake up alone again and wishing that day had never ended, that I had been smarter, and didn’t become the hard drinking asshole I became and that I could still be there with Jenny, watching the rain and being happy.

--194 Words--