You're coming home! It's been so long since I hugged your neck and held back sobs, knowing that I would see you again, but also knowing a part of me was leaving with you. It's been so long since we talked. Yes, we text every day, when something random and life-altering happens and we need someone to tell, someone who knows the true meaning behind it, but it's been so long since we've sat down with a cup of hot tea and a bag of popcorn and just vomited words about the moon and the stars and how that guy on the bicycle was super cute, but he was kind of creepy so you would never go for him.

It's been so long since we had a girls night, avoiding our phones because boys suck and chick flicks that make you sob and hope for fairy-tale love distract us for the time being. It's been so long since we went on a real adventure, one that starts at 8 a.m. because neither of us sleep in,
so we decide to go hiking almost two hours away and spend the entire day there, lose the
majority of the time. It's been so long since we just drove, windows down with the music pulsing throughout the night sky as we belted out every verse and rapped every line like we practically wrote the song ourselves. It's been so long since we always ended up on the floor staring up at the ceiling fan in silence, even though the couch was three feet away because being able to comfortably sit in silence with someone means something.

It's been so long.

But you're back! And we'll grab a cup of coffee at that breakfast spot we went to every other weekend and try and fall back into place, picking up where we left off, filing in the nooks and holes we missed along the way. We'll laugh until our eyes are streaming with tears, bringing up old times, i.e. "Remember that one party where you?" "Oh my, yes and you?" "I know!" We'll still talk trash on the same people, even though it's ugly of us to do so, but we know it will stay between the both of us because who are we going to tell, right? We'll hug, holding on tight but it isn't like it's supposed to feel because we have changed and we are different than we were five months ago when I helped you pack up the room we had spent countless hours in, laughing, crying, screaming, yelling.

We have changed.

There will be hidden pauses that were never there before, that shouldn't be there, and our tones will be too formal because this may be one of my closest friends in front of me but you address me as an acquaintance, and I you. There will be something that you say now that I don't get because it's between you and your friends back "home," and that's what you call your college town, you call it home now. And that's OK because I'm so ecstatic that you made new friends and brought more people into your life, and that's so important because you deserve all the love in the world. There will be some song I ask if you've heard of and you'll say no because we aren't around all the time to share that, and that's OK because then I get to show you and experience that new discovery all over again. There will be something one of us will make reference to, and there will be that moment when one of us says, "Remember when I told you..." and the other will simply say no because it wasn't ever actually told, and there will be an awkward moment when we both realize this has never happened before. It will be in that instant, if only a few heartbeats long, that we see that this is a reflection of our friendship now because we have changed.

And that's OK.

You will get to tell me things I haven't heard before, about the new cute guy across the hall that you decided to give a shot because you knew I would yell if you didn't, even though you never told me until now. I will get to tell you of my new successes and how I am now graduating earlier than anticipated because of my overwhelming chaotic schedule and I will say I knew I should do it because that's what you would say, even though I never told you until now. We will get to share the past five months, from beginning to end, the storytelling seemingly infinite, rekindling our old ways as inside jokes surface and you have to remind me that I am talking way too loud and I start telling you to stop being dumb and be careful about that boy even though your heart will soar into your throat every time he smiles. We figure out how to function again, and when we reference our parents we just say "ma" and "papa Watson" because they're "ma" and "papa Watson" to them too. We order for each other because even though the mileage between us has become dynamic, I know your taste is static, and you still get an iced chai no matter if it's 4 degrees outside or not, but sometimes you want that white mocha with caramel if you're in the "winter" mood.

We'll be OK.

It will take us one day to get back to normal, and for that month that you're home we will show up at each other's houses unannounced, Starbucks in hand. We will text 24/7 and call when we are too lazy to type out the long paragraphs about the fight we just got into with that one person we both secretly hate. I'll call you 30 minutes before I'm supposed to be somewhere and ask for that long grey cardigan you have that I need and you'll tell me you aren't home but I can go through the gate because the back door is always unlocked. We will pretend that you aren't leaving again in a numbered timeframe. But we'll be OK. We have changed, and yet we are still one another's person. We have changed, and when we first get together again it will feel oddly distant even though we are sitting directly across the booth. But we'll be OK.

I'll hug your neck tight again, knowing I will see you in another five months, and that will once again be so long. But you came home. Not to that new place, you came home to where your roots are so deeply planted that they've sprouted while you were gone.

So thanks for coming back, and thanks for not forgetting our one-liners. I'll see you soon.

With love,

Cass