My dorm is covered in photographs of me and my family and friends; I have photos from Christmas, prom, football games, and family portraits so that I can see everyone I love on a daily basis. I have two framed pictures that sit on my desk, that I always see when I look up and from homework and stuff. One is of my whole family at Easter, the other is of my best friend and I from a couple months ago.

At our high school, like many high schools, there was a tradition every year that the graduating seniors wore apparel from the college that they're attending in the fall. All the seniors wore their shirts with pride, joking about school rivalries, and who was going to the best school; they all glowed with happiness and beamed with smiles and hopes for what their futures would hold. This has been my favorite tradition at my high school since I was a freshman; I couldn’t wait for when I would get to parade down the hall in my college shirt, though I had no idea what college I would be repping. My senior year, I prided myself in wearing my TCU shirt, and my cowboy boots, because I would be the only one.

Our senior shirt day was arguably the nicest day in May that year; it was sunny and warm, but not hot, humid, or sticky. There were cool breezes that would ruffle the leaves in the trees and send ripples through the grass, which was greener than it had been in months; giving everything the familiar glow of late spring transitioning into early summer. By lunch time, it was near-perfect, and the front lawn was filled with students. Underclassmen were laying in the grass and eating lunch, the seniors taking pictures with their friends sporting their collegiate gear.

My best friend and I were also outside. Neither of us particularly liked taking pictures, me more so that her, but we both loved tradition. So, we stood next to each other, our arms linked, smiling brightly, as one of our younger friends snapped a photo for us. While I was smiling and standing next to her, I thought, “in a few months,, I’m going to say goodbye to this amazing human.” She was no longer going to live near me, just a text message away when I needed her. Though I was smiling for the picture, tears pricked the back of my eyes, and my breath caught in the back of my throat.

Suddenly, she was pulling me into a hug, grabbing me by the waist. She was squeezing me and laughing and smiling, and the tears in the back of my eyes started to fall, and I yelled “Stop, you’re pulling my hair!” But I squeezed her right back; and I thought about all the memories she and I had made in our four years of high school. I thought of all the memories we would make that summer before we had to go our separate ways. I thought about how much I was going to miss seeing her everyday.

Finally she let me go, and I got my phone back from the friend taking our picture. She wanted to look at them and make sure that we both looked alright and that we didn’t have to retake the photo. We scrolled through the first few, where we were standing normal and smiling, and then we came to the ones that were taken of her grabbing me in the hug. It’s still my favorite photo of the two of us, regardless of the fat that I wasn't looking at the camera; we were both smiling and looked so happy, regardless of the future months we were going to spend apart.