When We See Each Other Tomorrow by Jennifer Gu (17, New Jersey)

        With a final laugh, we stand up to leave the little table. Board games are organized into cardboard boxes, cards are gathered into decks. Orange juice and sparkling drinks fill half-empty glasses scattered around the floor. An advertisement starts to play on Rose’s phone, and then, old Christmas music. ​

​        We’re wearing pink floral dresses and red turtlenecks, clothes of the latest teenage trend and clothes from our mothers’ closets. Our hair is down and our hair is styled, we keep our lips chapped and we keep our lips glossed. We are walking the hallways of middle school, we are walking the streets of New York City. 
        I miss the way I used to look at my friends. Pretty smiles, warm hugs, memories of kiddie roller coasters and clutched hands during horror movie jump scares. Singing to musicals in the middle of the night with the night light on, pushing each other on swing sets until we couldn’t go any higher. These are memories that have been cemented into photo albums of the mind, memories that I can only reach back to from nearly-faded polaroids and inky captions. 
        Now, as I watch them standing by the kitchen sink and at the island counter, I am compelled to see what other people see when they say “you have your mother’s eyes.” But it isn’t just the way their eyes crease at the right angles, it’s also the way they walk with such grace in their step, losing the bounce of the earlier years as if they’re afraid to run. It’s also the way they’ve grown taller, away from the days when the ground was so much clearer. It’s the way they speak, slow and nearly poetic, without the frantic urge to spout words and stories like before. 
        When I walk into the kitchen, there is a moving mosaic of people dancing to the rhythm of holiday music as they take dishes to the sink and empty leftovers into plates. Carol and Rebecca are washing dirty plates at the sink and Rose and Amanda are organizing things into the fridge and pantry. And with a seemingly smile-like expression on my face, I join in on the pattern, cleaning the kitchen while making conversation of the utmost importance. One minute I am spooning some stuffing into an aluminum wrapped bowl while discussing future career prospects, and the next I am snacking on Goldfish while making silly faces at the camera with the rest of them. 
        The first time we were all joined together like this was such a short time ago. We were small, deer-looking children. We wore braces and braids and our clothes mismatched. Sleeping bags were puzzled across the living room floor and leftover pizza from the night before lay in cold boxes. We woke up early and hoped that our parents would come just a few minutes later so as to not disrupt the final remnants of sleepover stories and midnight secrets. 
        It is now almost midnight, yet we are still alive and awake, the lights are on, and we aren’t whispering in the dark but rather filling the room with warm conversation. Our stomachs are full not from cold grocery store pizza, but from Amanda’s pumpkin bread and Carol’s walnut shrimp and Rebecca’s banana pudding- homemade recipes that fill up the first pages of future grandmas’ handwritten recipe books. It’s the type of food that we pack up into Tupperware and that we each take a small serving home with us so we can share it with our parents and talk about how marvelous it tastes. Today, no secret grievances or names were shared under the blue of flashlights. It’s as if we have been left with no time for such trivial chatter. Instead, we take each moment together with a delicate inhale, writing it all down into half-filled paper minds. 
        And now as we’re standing around the little table, splitting up the last of the leftovers, I recognize that we are here now, with happiness on our faces and an unforgettable joy in the air because we learned to walk together, grow taller together, and say “I love you” together. I recall rushing to the lunch tables after class so we would all have places to sit, offering a shoulder to cry on after a bad math test, switching seats with one of them in class so I could see the board better. And even if our old stories are finished, soon we’ll be picking out bridesmaids’ dresses together, taking pictures of our newborns, and sipping coffee or champagne or whatever we’re supposed to drink when we’re old and at our holiday reunions. 
        So as the kitchen is returned to its original, pristine state, and we all gather by the front door to put on our coats and shoes, I am left with a bittersweet smile. Outside, cars are waiting with parents and cars are waiting empty. But before we leave, we say our goodbyes and hug, and I hold each of them ever so tightly, knowing that we won’t be the same when we see each other tomorrow.