Still

The last time I saw Olivia was our high school graduation. We were both still 17, kids on the cusp of becoming adults and throwing ourselves into the unknown.

We should’ve had that entire summer; get to mourn the inevitable drift of our insanely close friendship before it had started. We should've had time to do crazy things together and have deep conversations at 3am about the future. 

But she was going to college in Utah and her parents were taking the opportunity to move out there at the same time. 

The entire week of graduation was overshadowed by the painful truth that my confidant of four years would be gone the day after our highschool career was over. We tried not to let it affect things, but how could it not? 

We’d gotten each other through hard stuff. Our deepest thoughts were plain knowledge to the other. Secrets were a rarity. Fights were nonexistent; we knew each other too well to let a wedge of miscommunication drive us apart. Our personalities aligned to create the picture perfect friendship I didn’t think could go on as long as it did. 

Then… then she was gone. 

She was my best friend and she was gone.

We were a rock for each other and without her to talk to I felt as if I would float away at any moment. Sure, there were calls and texts and facetime but it wasn’t the same. Each time I wanted to ask when she was coming home but… she was home. 

A couple of times we tried to get deep about how we felt, but there was nothing we could do about the situation. And that came to the point where it was easier to say nothing at all. And soon that silence morphed into a wedge. A wedge that only grew when school started. 

I loved Ohio State and as time went on I didn’t miss her as much, but there were moments. My roommates didn’t automatically know my favorite color or my phone password or what I thought just based on my expression. I was so used to someone understanding my whole personality it was strange to start over. 

Occasionally we’d have a quick text conversation and at times when I was having a bad day only she’d understand I’d scroll through her instagram at all the new pictures from Utah. I was doing the same thing, it was a mutual drift; something most high school friends experience, but it still hurt. I’d never clicked into a friendship as quickly as I did with Olivia. 

I’d always harbored the hope that she and I would somehow keep in touch but it was stupid, if 26 hours of distance doesn’t change things the fact that we were both fitting into new social groups certainly did. Our lives were separate now;  the strict teachers that once gave us something to talk about were no longer there. Maybe she was still a phone call away but it wasn’t the same as knowing she could be there in ten minutes. 

~~~

It was Olivia’s 19th birthday. We were both official adults now. I still liked her photos and commented on a post every once in a while. Maybe that’s what we were now. We’d faded into comfortable old friends, the type that runs into each other in the mall one day and catches up for five minutes before going back to their lives. 

But I missed her. Her laugh, her eccentric music tastes and crazy clothing choices that drew glances from all those around her. I smiled as I flipped through an old stack of photos Olivia and I had taken on an ancient camera. With a small sprout of a thought in my mind I moved towards the school calendar I had on my desk. It was some holiday or another so the weekend was off. Hm. Interesting. 

With a burst of that impulsive energy I had always envied in Olivia, I pulled a duffel from under my bed and threw in a few necessities and clothes. Rifling through my bookcase I grabbed book I had planned to give her had we been together on her 18th birthday. Exhilaration didn’t begin to describe the emotion that filled me. This was the energy that made you finally ask that guy to the prom or buy the way too expensive jacket you’d wanted forever. 

Or, in this case, hop a plane to Utah. 

Thanking some higher power for the saving gene I had inherited from my parents, I bought a ticket on the way to the airport, the cab driver giving me a strange glance as I beamed all the way there. 

The plane was set to depart in 20 minutes as I raced through security. The next plane wouldn’t leave for hours and I didn’t think the adrenaline running through my veins would be content waiting. I was doing something crazy for the first time in my life, something totally illogical that I hadn’t spent days considering before deciding on. 

As the five hour plane ride crawled by I examined Olivia’s instagram for where she was living. Finally a post with her roommates and her in front of their house caught my attention and I put the address in maps from the airport. It was a short cab ride that I could only hope the cash in my purse would afford. 

~~~

521 Lauffer Rd. 

I stood on the sidewalk, my duffel bag over my shoulder as I went up the gravel walk. It was a quaint place, dark green with a peeling paint but; much like Olivia, it didn’t give me partying vibes. I knocked on the door, fear creeping in that her roommate would open it, or what if she wasn’t home? What if she had plans, it was her birthday after all. 

“Ellie?!” I looked up and there she was. A grin spread across Olivia’s face and I knew I matched it. Within seconds she was hugging me, my duffel bag falling onto the stoop. 

Not much had changed at all, minutes later our conversation flowed like the water it had once been. We hadn’t been in each other's presence since we were kids. We were adults now but it was the same. 

And there she still was; my best friend.