A Year Around the Sun

t h i r t y-s i x - it's not meant to be

tell myself it's alright
as the tears roll b y . . .

🌊🌊🌊

"My friends!" I squealed with a grin, my arms open wide to hug the four people I consider my siblings.

All of our bodies collided together in a massive embrace that we held for quite some time. Sadie and I were a bit crushed by our taller friends, we didn't know whose hand was whose, but we couldn't care less. We were finally reunited.

Just days before Christmas, my friends were officially on winter break and back home. I was more than ecstatic about it because they'll be home for nearly a month, versus fall break which is the last time I saw them all. It was a short, whirlwind of a week back in November and it went way too quick. Now, I don't have to worry about it because we'll probably be together every day until they all go back to school.

"God, I don't know what I ever do when I'm not with you people," Jodie said from somewhere above my head.

"You don't even want to know how awful it is here without you guys," I muttered into someone's chest. I think it was Caleb's.

I heard Noah scoff, "We hang out, you know. I still live at home."

"Yeah," I popped my head up to meet his eyes and smiled. "But now it's all of us again. Just you isn't the same thing." He just playfully rolled his eyes at that.

We let each other go a minute later, realizing how cold it was outside and that standing on my front porch wasn't going to make us any warmer. The gang followed me inside after I opened the door and we took over my living room. It instantly felt like they were never gone. I was on the couch with Jodie and Sadie on either side of me, Caleb was lounging in the recliner adjacent to us, and Noah was sitting on the ottoman that was on the other end of the coffee table across from his brother.

It didn't take long for us to dive into a sporadic discussion consisting of catching up on each other's lives, taking turns with stories and hopping from one thing to the next like we were all on Adderall. Our group chat is ongoing even while my friends are at school, but it's not the same as talking in person.

For them, a lot happens in one month, so I mainly listened to them while they told me all about the mischief they get themselves into at college. It's not like I had much to tell, other than my boring days at work, eating dinner with my parents, and falling asleep on the couch with my mom as we try to stay up and watch our nightly shows. Their stories are much more exciting than mine, that's for sure.

Jodie actually isn't the mother of her small group of friends at school, because she says that job is strictly reserved for only us. She's thinking about joining a sorority, to carry on her family's Delta Gamma legacy and for the experience. Her and Aiden have also developed a beautiful relationship during their time together, which I never thought I would say. Though I guess it was fate all along and they were meant to be together.

Caleb and Sadie are still the sickeningly sweet, flawless couple that they've always been, despite the miles between them. Sadie joined a bunch of clubs, helps out with fundraisers all the time, and works at her school library. Caleb is a tutor on the side and is debating on studying abroad for a whole summer while he's in school. Noah shockingly has a girl at his school that he's seeing, though he swears they're not dating – they just hang out a lot, sleep together, and text 24/7, so I've been told. Other than that, he's just messing around and being a typical college kid. He hasn't decided on a major yet either.

After catching up on an entire semester's worth of events, we were finally reminiscing together as we devoured the two pizza's we had delivered to my house, along with an order of fries and a giant bottle of Coke. Noah inhaled three slices, two glasses of soda and more than a handful of fries and was done eating first. Then he silently got up and settled himself on the couch between Jodie and the armrest.