I hope your college classes are going well, and I’m hoping that you’re doing just as well.

I hope your boyfriend loves you, and I hope he treats you good still because I may be hundreds of miles away but I will come back there by bus or train or plane to kick his ass for you, and you know I’m not alone on this.

I hope you see your family a lot, and get to tell them you love them, and I hope you’re happy with what you’re doing right now, and at school.

I hope you miss me.

I hope you think about me as much as I think about you because it’s a lot, in case you were wondering. I think about you when I’m curled on a desk chair watching a movie because I know that we’d probably watch it together if things were the same. I haven’t watched a horror movie since I left home because it’s not the same if you’re not there to talk through the entire thing. I think about you when I’m sitting at my lunch table with friends talking because I know that I’d give every single one of these friends back for it to just be you, me, and that big dork we call our friend too, and a whole table full of McDonald’s food.

He’s a vegan now, did you know? Because it’s awful.

I miss you when I’m laying in bed in silence because I know that this entire experience would be a hundred times better if you were in that other bed and him on the floor as you two keep talking when I’m the only one actually trying to sleep here, though I wouldn’t sleep for a year to have a weekend for just us.

Sure, moving to New York City is a dream, but is it as great as the weekends and summers I spent at your house? Playing Barbies and getting Easy Bake oven powder all over white carpets and knocking out shelves because we were crawling in places we shouldn’t have been crawling in the first place. Days outside when we’d use the shrubs that lined your driveway like houses or when we’d act like lost siblings in your inflatable pool that wasn’t really even that big but for our purposes sufficed. Nights when we’d play board games that we’d take from the treasury of games in your garage that are still there to this day, then get ready to sleep with those iconic velvet blankets, and then prayers with your mom that soon enough became normal for a girl who never attempted nightly prayers.

The short answer is: probably not.

I can tell you right off the bat, living in New York City does not compare to nights the two of you would show up at the house after shifts at work. Doesn’t compare to late night runs to McDonald’s or Taco Bell, or late night food making, or cookie baking. Isn’t as surreal as babysitting together till almost 6 in the morning, then going to my house to find my mom still baking cookies and hoping we’d bake with her.

College is nothing like the beauty of watching your best friend walk across the stage at graduation because THAT IS MY BEST FRIEND AND LOOK AT HER GO.

My friends here don’t match your family, that became my second family, and this dorm doesn’t match your house that became my second home. I’m sorry that we didn’t spend enough time at your house the last few years. We’re going to change that. The weekends here have yet to match weekends at my grandmother’s where we’d spend too much time on the computer, screeching and cooing over the Jonas Brothers for hours till we fell asleep.

Let’s be honest, we don’t talk enough. I act like I’m fine about it, because I am if I don’t think about it, but when I first moved here and texted you and never got a reply, I traveled around campus like I was lost.

A roommate who complained about missing her best friend, complaining because her best friend is spending time with other people, and the only thing I could think of was: at least your best friend texts you. But I don’t condemn you for it because I know we all have things, and I understand, just, I missed you.

I’ve learned that living at college without your best friend is face-timing your mom and when you’re talking about coming home for winter break, crying because you’ll finally get to see her again.

Living at college without your best friend is looking at everyone you talk to on a daily basis and knowing that you’d give them all back, one by one, to have a night where it’s just you and her, under blankets with phones in hand, comfortable and watching movies.

I don’t regret not going to school back in Pennsylvania. I don’t regret any of the decisions I’ve made here. The only thing I regret is not being able to see you as much as I used to. Because my life, since I’d met you at our brothers’ Boy Scout function almost 13 years ago, has never been the same. And, it’s almost like I don’t know how to live properly without being able to see you at the click of a few buttons.

13 years—what the hell?

Years where we witnessed each other go through hell and back, with friends coming and going, interests sparking and fizzling, matching Barbies, and childish fights, and bags of smashed nail polish.

To the best friend—no, scratch that.

To the sister I couldn’t take with me when I moved to New York,

You deserve everything, and so much more. You’re one of the most beautiful souls I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting, and it’s about time that I tell you that. You have done so much for me, and I appreciate you so.

I miss you so much, I love you so much, and when I’m home this summer, you’re going to see more of me than you’ve probably ever wanted. So, tell your boyfriend to chill.

And I’ll see you soon.

Love your best friend,
All the way from this lonely ass city,
Your Sister from another Mister