I’m afraid that I’m going to be missing you for the rest of my life.

Millie,

I can’t sleep with my window closed, and you can’t sleep with shoes on your floor. 

You give everything in your room its own place, and I let all my belongings fling themselves wherever they want.

You need a place to stay, somewhere you belong, and my worst fear is being tied down to one place for the rest of my life.

I’m so scared of that. I’m so scared, Millie.

I’m so scared that we’re destined to separate—destined to fall apart more than we stick together; I’m absolutely, gut-wrenchingly terrified that we’re doomed to grow further and further apart the older we get. 

The thought of next September makes me sick to my stomach. For some reason, it just clicked in my head that when you leave, you’re not coming back.

You will for the holidays, of course, but it won’t be the same. 

I’d rather sit in the kitchen for 100 more days, doing APUSH while you water your plants, than spend one Christmas morning a year without you. 

This is our last year. This is our last summer. I will never share a first day of school with you again, and I will never eat ice cream with you on our last. 

I’ve had “Ribs” by Lorde on repeat for months. I don’t think I’m going to be able to listen to it anymore when you’re gone.

I’ve never felt more alone, feels so scary getting old. 

I’m trying not to be dramatic; it’s not like you’re dying. I’m trying to rationalize with myself. I’m trying to tamp down the nausea crawling up my throat with reminders of holiday breaks and the many months until next year, but it stopped working a while ago. 

I’ve knocked on the wall connecting my room to the bathroom too many times, and now, I don’t know what I’ll do when I don’t hear you knock back. 

There is no love quite like this one. None quite as destructive; none quite as beautiful. 

I know every single part of you, down to the bone. I know you down to the quick of your fingernails and the texture of the bottom layer of your hair. I know you down to the face you make when you’re about to cry and the sound of your voice after screaming Noah Kahan lyrics for an hour straight. 

I have never, and I will never, love anyone the way I love you. I will never hate anyone the way I hate you. 

I would jump off a cliff for you, but I swear to God, if you chew another piece of popcorn like that, I’m going to push you off myself. 

I guess what I’m trying to say through this overdramatic, over-sentimental, column written too late at night is that I’m going to miss you.

I’m going to miss you when you go to college. I’m going to miss you every time I want to spend the afternoon in Schuler’s Books doing nothing and buying too much. I’m going to miss you when I go to college. I’m going to miss you when I want to drive aimlessly through streets with no destination in mind, just because the music is too good to stop listening to.

I’m going to miss you for the rest of my life. And I’m scared. 

I’m scared that when I’m in New York, and you’re in Chicago, and we haven’t lived together in years, I’ll still wish I could yell to you down the hallway. 

I love you. I hate you. 

Leave me alone right now, but please, don’t leave for college. 

And when my window is painted shut, and the Converse are stuck to your floor, come sit with me in the bathroom and breathe easier for a while. 

Sit with me until we both fall asleep again and wake up and fight with me about who gets the blanket.

Missing you already (no matter what, no matter where),

Your favorite person ever <3