Freedom tasted like chunks of strawberry ice cream sliding down our newly-licensed forearms onto the leather car seats we promised my mother we’d keep clean. You screamed every time you merged onto the highway, the exclamatory shape of your mouth ringed with sweet berries and cream. The volume knob on the radio turned sticky from our iced fingers turning up the music so we could shout cheesy lyrics at each other, letting songs about living while we’re young get lost in the wind. We would fight over who got to drive to our weekly ice cream trip, but I let you win most of the time. You looked better driving my mom’s old minivan anyways.

Irresponsibility was whirled into the rocky road ice cream I ate at the Fourth of July party to try to mask the cheap taste of vodka searing down my throat. I asked you if you could see the exploding stars in the sky or if that was just something that all drunk people saw, and you kindly explained the concept of fireworks to me. You gave me aspirin and water and waited until the next day to tease me about it. I promised to stick to Fresca with you next time.

Being grounded tasted like Blueberry Blast. My mom found out about the Fourth of July thing. Probably because I passed out on our front porch when I got home and she found me covered in vomit the next morning, but who can say? She took my keys and said I couldn’t drive anywhere with you, so we walked four miles on the hottest day of the summer to stick to our important ice cream schedule. I was so grateful to you that I even let you convince me to try

Blueberry Blast. It was terrible. You told me that you couldn’t get ice cream with me the next week because you had an appointment. I always hated blueberries.

Your appointment tasted like the cooked carrots my mom made me eat that day because I was at home for once and not with you. I hate cooked carrots even more than I hate blueberries, but barely. I ate two ice cream sandwiches for dessert to make up for the carrots.

The first time I visited you after your admittance tasted like Fudgsicles, warm and melted after being shoved in my pocket so I could smuggle them past the doctors. We got fudge all over your white sheets. Okay, it was mostly me. I got fudge all over your white sheets. Then you told me you’d die for a Blueberry Blast and I was so appalled I wanted to stop being your friend right then and there, but I decided against it because I’m just a good person like that.

The second time I visited you tasted like vanilla ice cream. You had one perfect scoop in a Styrofoam cup. It was a pitifully small amount to give an ice cream aficionado such as yourself, but you shared with me anyways. It was the bean kind, not the French kind. We said they saved the French kind for when you get to go home. I told the nurses that they should get someone to paint on a terrible mustache and talk like Lumiere when you leave with your Going Home ice cream, and you laughed so hard that the tube in your nose disconnected and people rushed in and made me leave.

My third visit tasted like nothing. You told me you couldn’t eat because it made everything worse and I said maybe this was all just a serious case of lactose intolerance. You didn’t laugh.

My fourth visit tasted like the mask they made me cover my mouth with so I didn’t give you more germs. You slept the whole time. Which was a shame, because I had a really great joke to tell you. It was about cows. And also because that was the last time.

Your wake tasted like damp Kleenex and stale raisin cookies from the Stop & Shop down the street. My mom said I had to wear tights, but I said I didn’t think you would care if I did or not. Plus, I hate tights more than I hate cooked carrots and Blueberry Blast, but barely.

Your funeral tasted like French vanilla ice cream. It was too melted and I couldn’t finish my soupy scoop of the Going Home ice cream. I would have preferred Blueberry Blast.

– Kristen Milburn