I wasn’t the first to see you walk into the crowded tent-shaped bookstore. My mother and sister cried out your nickname first, and then I turned and saw you, and I cried out your name.

It took all I had not to run towards you. You were trying to put your headphones in your pocket and get your rainbow umbrella situated, but I needed a hug then and there. You stumbled and gave up, my arms already around you, and you put yours around me.

Real quick hug.

All the sudden I was happy and strangely nervous. I stumbled over my words in excitement, my face heating up, breath quicker. My very best friend.

We picked right back up as if we never left off, never said goodbye all those months ago. We told each other as much as we could, and I relished in all your little mannerisms - the way you squint your eyes, the way you describe things you don’t like, that little head bob when you smile, and my favorite: the way your brown eyes framed with thick lashes widen slightly when you’re listening to me. You still looked exactly the same.

We walked to your car as my mother and sister checked out at the store. We talked and laughed just like we used to, our dry-humor entertaining one another as it always did. And I found that I really miss you. I miss how you always knew what I was thinking with just one look, how we’d finish each other’s sentences, our seemingly hundreds of inside jokes, the way we just… fit.

And when you hugged me again by your car, just me and you, your arms stayed tightly wrapped around me for much longer than before. So I held on harder and half-closed my eyes, smiling into your shoulder, smelling your hair.

And when we finally drew back, all that existed was four searching brown eyes and the word “goodbye,” though it felt like “stay.” I turned to go back. Yet for those thirty seconds, I was home.