Happy, Simple as That

"Do you ever fall in love with someone you've just met, like sitting on the bus or standing in line behind you?" she asks me.

"Like love at first sight?" I reply, distracted by the sunbeams falling down from the blue sky.

She squints, shielding her eyes with a hand so she can look at me. "No, I mean, just fall absolutely in love with this stranger. So much that your heart aches when they walk away, even if neither of you said anything to the other."

"Do you?" It's a stupid response, but I'm not sure what else to say to her. She seems so enthralled with the air out here that her words come out happy and I don't want to disturb that.

"Yeah," she says. "All the time. Every day."

I smile. "Do you ever fall in love with me?"

She whispers, "Every day. All the time."

I tilt my head away from her so I can see the gracious waves lapping at the sandy shore, mere feet away from where we're sitting on the calm wooden deck. Under the ocean, millions of tiny creatures are living their daily lives, eating plankton and swimming quickly past bigger creatures in hopes of surviving another day. We do it too, up here in the air. We rush past the dangers so we'll make it to tomorrow, so we can rush past more dangers and make it to another day of rushing and rushing and hiding.

"What are you thinking about, lovely?" she asks me with a grin on her sweet lips.

"I'm thinking fuck it. I'm tired of living safe so I can keep on living safe." I prop myself up on my elbows.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I don't want to walk on the sidewalk. I want to dance in the street. I want to spin in circles between the speeding cars. I want to sing at the top of my lungs!"

"Keep going," she prompts.

"I wanna love without caring about anything anyone else thinks! Just love and fuck, you know? Just be happy," I tell her. "I just want to be happy."

"Me too," she mumbles.

"So let's do it," I say.

"Yes," she says. "Let's be happy."