The boy at the drive-thru window called us “pretty ladies” as he passed our straws through the window with a sly smile on his face.

We looked at each other and giggled before continuing to listen to the old Taylor Swift melodies drifting through my radio at an appropriate volume for seven-thirty-two on a Wednesday night in a McDonald’s drive-thru line. 

It was approximately seven thirty-three that I realized my smile was the largest it had been in a while. 

My face burned from the upturned position my mouth held the entire night as we sang so loud—we slightly lost our voices the following morning.

It was the perfect combination of nostalgic highs, reminiscent of nights we had back in fifth grade, and me trying to pump gas into my car while I danced from foot to foot desperately trying to stay warm in February’s frigid temperatures.

We drove down the curving lane by the baseball diamond that always seems to flood in the spring but is now covered in layers of fluffy flakes. As I drove, we belted the lyrics to “Forever & Always” as the cars in the other lane blinded us with their headlights.

We passed by his house as the song shifted to “All Too Well,” and we sang the bridge with everything in us—I’m convinced even his dog heard us sing the lyrics “and maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much, but maybe this thing was a masterpiece till you tore it all up.”

Your neighborhood’s roads hadn’t been plowed and my small, black Chevy Trax slid through the streets at the slightest move of the wheel.

Your parents weren’t home.

The house was quiet and dark until we continued our Taylor Swift induced fun and plopped down on opposite sides of the kitchen island to drink our green milkshakes and discuss what number the drive-thru boy was on a scale of one to ten.

We watched that one movie with Chris Pine and Lindsay Lohan, and we spent the whole time pining over the male lead and feeling empathetic when he’d be stuck with a particularly bad case of luck.

Emily, thank you for accompanying me on a perfect night with Pikachu Happy Meals and old Lindsay Lohan movies. Thank you for humoring me with my old Swift break-up music. Thank you for laughing with me when the drive-thru boy called us pretty even though we both were in our sweatpants.