I wonder if it would be like this if we weren't forced to be together again.

I walk into the open arms of the front doors as immediately as I walk into somebody's arms. The smell of school mixes with the too familiar weave of voices of other conversations that I am not a part of, but I am having myself. I hear layers of "I missed you" sewn into "how was your trip" and written over "I wish we didn’t have school, but I'm still so excited to see you."

I pass through conversations and expressions that are repetitive, but the people who hold them with me aren't. These people are all so different. They're different from even when I saw them last. The girl who got snowed in with the others isn't shy anymore. The girl who used to be the center of attention hangs back with an otherworldly pall over her face. She never really came home. She's still out there somewhere.

I walk over to her but I see that she's missing. She holds the same conversation like we've been taught, but I can tell that it’s not resonating with her anymore.

And somehow I realize through her that it's not resonating with me anymore. That somehow these walls and these halls and the open arms of these doors all don’t fit quite as they used to. Something feels uncomfortable now, like a pair of jeans that shrunk in the wash. Something irritating nips at me, but I'm afraid to address the problem. Afraid that if I do, I will know for sure that there actually is one.

I walk down the hall that I have rolled on. The carpet that holds a few of my tears after a bad test. The walls reverberating with the words that come out of me and the girls near me and I start to hear the layered ghosts of conversations from ages ago that I have grown out of already two sizes too far. I hear them just as clear as the girl next to me. What was I like as a freshman. How different was I two and a half years ago.
Back when this carpet was fresh. When this hall was empty, full of potential, of opportunities. The air was empty enough to store hundreds of memories. But as I walk through, everything I have stored comes back. Like walking through a library where the books all open and scream their chapters in your face. It’s a lot. It’s been a lot. The hall holds a lot.

It’s hard to know who I have become considering I am having trouble even understanding who I was. Maybe high school isn't something to be explained. Maybe it shouldn’t be understood. Maybe all the good that happens here is just a smear of memories that we will take into the world with us, but which smear will I bear? Will I carry the tears in the carpet or will I bring the layers of conversation that fill the hall during this very minute? I feel myself compartmentalizing this moment into a memory, shining off the edges until it becomes a pristine ornament. It slips into a box with open arms, and I wonder if I will carry with me to college the memory smear from today. Today, when we are all so honestly excited to see each other; today, when we say the same things over and over again.