People ask how long we’ve been friends. Six months, I say. People are shocked. How well do you really get to know someone in six months? How could a mere six months of friendship lead to something so indestructible? Surprised already by the knowledge, people ask how long ago she moved across the globe. 5 months ago, I say. Last June.

And no, I don’t understand it either, how I fully bonded with the friend of a lifetime over the course of a month. It just didn’t make sense. A month after meeting someone, you tend to learn their full names. Their favorite colors, school subjects, and hobbies. Their general interests, the outside layer of their personalities. How rare is it for one’s hopes, dreams, and aspirations to come out during this time? What if I went so far as to say both of our whole, true selves were revealed?

Neither of us had known friendship like this before. Within a week of introducing ourselves we were spending every free minute together. Making secret clubs about life being truly beautiful. We both had been falling, and with the support of each other, not only did we get to stand back up, but we were able to soar.

But there was a bleak reality that neither of us wanted to face. It hit me, at lunch period, when she sat down at my table. Something about her ever-present smile was dwindling.

“Hey, by the way, I need that book back… because, you know, I’m going back to Europe in two weeks….”

Of course something like this was going to be temporary. We all knew that she wasn’t going to stay in our nation until high school began, even since she was only a silhouette and a name on a sweatshirt. But we made the most of it, didn’t we? I like to think we did, up until the night before your plane left when we were dancing in the rain on your driveway, barefoot, sheltered by trees, catching petals. An experience I’d later remember as the highest point in my life.

Before I knew it, the rain ceased, the petals were all but gone, and the sight of my soul sister disappeared from the view out of the back of my dad’s car.

Of course, we still talk, often. Three times a week, if we can. And yet, in the past six months, her computer generated smile is more real to me than her real face. I’ve only ever seen her from the flat screen in the corner of my bedroom and in two-inch form on my iPod. There are no petals falling from the sky in my bedroom. There’s no internet connection out in the summer rain, but my heart is out there, and I know yours is too; our friendship will never weaken. Even if right now, you’re just my 21st century ghost.