White squares

I went to the mall today with my friends. Me and one of my friends were walking ahead and I looked down at the familiar tiled floor, that familiar pattern of mostly blue with white squares making lines and patterns, and I remembered something:
"You know, when I was little, I used to try to only walk on the white squares."

We looked at each other, laughed, and then each set off, running on those white squares, trying to beat each other to an undetermined location, and trying not to crash into people. We giggled and ran through the mall, not caring how we looked, two teens running around like little children, not caring that someone we knew could see us. We jumped down steps and cut in front of each other, and she cheated a bit, then we sat down on a bench after we had got too far ahead of our other friends, to wait for them.

She was out of breath, and I not as much, but that's just because I do track. She laughed and said to me "I'm so out of breath. Never mention this to anyone again."
I asked her if she meant the running on those white tiles, or the whole tired after 30 seconds of running thing.
And she said how she was out of breath, and that made me very, very happy. Because I don't want to forget that feeling of flying through the mall with one of my best friends, that revival of my childhood.
Honestly, sometimes I feel like a little girl stuck into an adolescent's body, and I want to escape the whole being grown up façade that so many people put up. And it that moment, I felt it shatter, in a feeling of childish reckless abandon. My joyful little girl that likes to skip the first and last step of the staircase, who made up elaborate stories with her friends and beanie babies, the one who ran around the playground screaming and laughing, was back. And everyone needs to show that sometimes. I thank the white squares for those moments of being carefree.