Forever Young by Betty Hammerschlag

"So we were just hanging out in Astrid’s new room. She had moved into a new shared flat, and of course I helped with the move. Kennie had met her a few weeks earlier at some opening. Around that time, I’d just finished my first stressful exams. A room opened up because Pia—suddenly, right before finishing her bachelor’s—moved out. Jonas lived there too, but he was mostly at his girlfriend Michele’s place.

Music was playing. Astrid was sorting stuff while Kennie and I tried to put the bed together. Kennie borrowed the tools from work. Then Jonas’s phone started ringing in the kitchen—forever. The ringtone fit the music perfectly. We just looked at each other, grinned, and nodded along to the beat.

At some point Kennie jumped up and came back a minute later.
“That’s Charlotte,” she said, just like that.

Charlotte was about our age, freckles, hand painted Converse, and a ladybug tattoo on her arm. I’d never seen her before.
She came in, ran her hand over the bed frame like she was checking if it was solid, then looked at me and wrinkled her nose, just for fun.

Some hours later I was still sitting in the middle of the room on the crumpled IKEA manual when Jonas suddenly appeared in the doorway. He opened his mouth to say something but went quiet when he saw Charlotte. Something felt off, and I automatically looked at Astrid.

Right then his phone started ringing again in the kitchen. But Jonas just stood there in the doorway.
Kennie threw her head back and let out a long groan while Charlotte danced lightly through the room—partly backwards toward the window.
Like in slow motion, she raised her arms and clapped loudly several times out the window.
Someone on the street called back to her.

A few weeks later we went swimming together at the lake. It was still warm. The sky had turned purple—and so had the lake. Later on the bus, we watched videos: some guy named Titus living off the grid in the Appalachians, no electricity or running water, growing sweet potatoes and carrots, walking barefoot."

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