I miss you. When I think of all the things I want to say to you, "I miss you" is the first and the loudest phrase to come to my mind. Three simple words, eight little letters. I’ve typed it out to you so many times, my thumb hovering over the send button, wanting nothing more than to press it, but ultimately resting on backspace instead. I don’t know how to say it to you, I really don’t. Talking to you used to be so easy. I would spill out to you everything that came to my mind, with no regard to how annoying I must have been. If I saw a cute puppy on the quad, or if I wanted to complain about how tired I was, or even if I just wanted someone to listen to me talk, I would always turn to you. I would talk without a breath for hours on end, and I would bombard your texts and Snapchats. Now I can’t even tell you three words. I’ve been a writer and a poet for my entire life and I can’t even find a way to tell you three simple words.

I know I messed up. I found out something about you, I got jealous, I acted petty, I created distance that didn’t need to be there. Instead of telling you how I felt, like I told you everything else, I tried to push you away as a way to push away all the feelings. It worked, and I lost one of my closest friends in the process. Now I don’t know how to repair it, or even come to tell you I’m sorry and that I want the old us back. We’ve gone from never going an hour without talking to each other to a string of text messages days apart, halfheartedly attempting to get together some time, but always having a reason not to.

Getting a message from you now is a rare surprise. I’ll see your name pop up on my phone and my heart will leap into my throat and I’ll rush to open it. Though usually only three or four words, I’ll read it over and over, and try to formulate the perfect response: interested but not too eager, more than a few words but not a paragraph, make it seem like you’re not my top priority, but also that I still want to talk to you. What used to be simple, mindless, and honest has turned into a mathematical sequence of what to say and what not to say; and not to mention when to say it. Responding immediately is desperate and clingy, taking a few hours is too distant. I usually settle for a safe medium of forty-five minutes.

But why has talking to you come to this? Why do I have to spend so much time formulating and planning what to say to you and when, when all I really want to say is that I miss you? I miss you, damn it, I miss you. I miss late night conversations and laughing through movies and telling stories. I miss bringing you to my formals. I miss always being able to depend on you. I miss sending you ugly Snapchats. I miss being more than your friend but not your girlfriend. I miss being able to be one hundred percent myself around you. I miss being us.

So if you’re reading this right now, I just want you to know how much I miss you.

Sincerely,

The girl who let you slip away