The dashboard radio crackled as Sarah pulled onto the worn dirt road, her old Chevy kicking up dust in the fading sunset. The static cleared just enough to catch the opening chords of “Born to Run,” and her heart skipped a beat. Too many years had passed, but that song still took her right back to that perfect summer.
She could almost feel the wooden slats of the bleachers beneath her legs again, taste the sweetness of gas station cherry Coke, and see David’s crooked smile as he’d stretched out beside her that night after the football game. They were just two small-town kids with big dreams, sharing earbuds and watching heat lightning dance across the horizon.
Every weekend that summer followed the same beautiful routine – David would pick her up in his beat-up Jeep, and they’d drive for hours down backroads with no destination in mind. The soundtrack never changed: Bruce Springsteen’s greatest hits, played on a scratched CD that skipped during the second verse of “Thunder Road.”
“This is our song,” David would always say, turning up the volume until the speakers rattled. It didn’t matter which track was playing – they were all their song.
September came too fast, bringing with it college acceptance letters pointing them toward opposite coasts. They promised to stay in touch, to make it work somehow, but both knew their summer soundtrack was coming to an end.
Now, as Sarah pulled up to her old high school for her daughter’s graduation, she smiled at the memories. She’d heard David had moved back to town last year, teaching music at the middle school. Maybe he still thought about those nights too, when they were young and fearless, with nothing but open roads and Springsteen songs stretching out before them.
She parked in the familiar lot and killed the engine, but let the radio play just a moment longer. Some songs had the power to take you back, to remind you of who you used to be. And sometimes, that was exactly where you needed to go.