Her

Those fluorescent lights at IHOP were always too bright at 2:00 AM, but for us, they were the only stars that mattered.

​I was ready with the boxes packed, the one heading into the unknown of dorm life with a mix of terror and bravado-fueled by a terrifying hunger to be something—to prove that a girl from Denver could build a kingdom out of nothing but grit.

She was the one staying in town, already burning with that restless, hungry determination to conquer the world, her eyes fixed on a success and happiness she could already taste. We were a collision of "leaving" and "staying," a pair of magnets spinning in the dark.

​The first night I brought her back to my dorm room, the air felt electric. The room was small, already smelling of alcohol and teenage bad decisions, but with her there, it felt like a palace. I wanted to be successful for me, but I wanted to be successful as her, to prove that our name meant something unstoppable. I wanted to show her that I was growing up, that I was becoming someone, but beneath that layer of college-girl pride was a desperate, aching longing. I wanted her to look at me and see not just a girl leaving for school, but the only person she could ever truly want.

That stretch of Highway 85 between Denver and Greeley was a lifeline we frayed every night. I’d drive South just to see her for an hour; she’d drive North just to lay in my twin sized dorm mattress with me. We were young, dumb, and dangerously infatuated, convinced that if we just drove fast enough, we could outrun the different directions our lives were headed.

​We played those dangerous games of jealousy and desire, sharp-edged and cruel-the way only young love can be.

​I’d brag about the girl in my World History class just to see her jaw tighten.

​She’d talk about her skyrocketing love life and the "friends" we'd see come and go, just to see if I’d flinch.

We weren't just two girls in a dorm room; we were a glitch in the universe. Sharing a name felt like a secret language-or maybe a warning.

When I called out for "Lyss," I was calling out for the version of myself I only saw when I was with her. It made the jealousy sharper—how could I hate her when she carried my own name? How could I leave her without leaving a part of myself behind? How can I continue on like this without telling her?

We were constantly testing the tether, yet we both knew—with a certainty that terrified us—that what we felt was different. It wasn't the shallow love of our peers. It was a heavy, addicting tectonic shift that made everyone else feel like background noise. For a while, the tether between us was the only thing keeping my Earth spinning. If only I could bottle that first night in Greeley and enjoy your high forever.

​But as the years pulled us in different directions, the "right person, wrong timing" of it all became a cage. We grew up. We found partners who didn't make us bleed, who offered peace instead of a battle. We found other people who were "easier," who didn't require a constant emotional battle. We built homes with women who were stable-who didn't make us feel like we were constantly vibrating at a frequency that was undoubtedly bound to break glass.

Yet, we never let go.

We stayed tucked in the corners of each other's minds, a constant love/hate cycle that kept us from ever being fully present in our own lives.​ Our tether turned to a thorny vine, we'd both be terrified to grapple, later. I’d see a white Honda Pilot or hear a song we would play for eachother going through Weld County, and I’d be right back there. We’d call each other when we shouldn't. We’d meet for Tequila and spend half the time arguing about things that happened a decade ago and the other half looking at each other with a longing that felt like a physical weight. ​

"Your hands are sweaty and I still love that," she’d say, nodding at the way I'd pull my hands away in my non embarrassed way because of the inherit comfortability we share.

​It was the ultimate "right person, wrong timing" tragedy. We were two magnets that wanted to join but were held apart by the polarities of our own growth and fear. We loved each other enough to stay, but we hated that our presence in each other’s lives was keeping us from fully committing to the lives we had actually built

​Finally, standing on the edge of a life that required me to be whole, I knew I have to let go. Not because the love was gone, but because it was too heavy to carry any further.

​

What should I tell her? What do you tell someone that has given you so much and has asked for so little in return?

​I'd look at her, and for a second, I'm not a 30 year old me with a full life anymore,

I'm eighteen again, smelling the sugar and old grease of an IHOP booth, desperate for her to stay.

But the sun still comes up, and we aren't those girls anymore.

​We spent so much time trying to win a game that had no prize. We stroked this fire because we liked the way it burned, even when it was turning us to ash. I used to think that if I just achieved enough, or if she just waited long enough, the stars would finally align. But some stars aren't meant to align—they’re just meant to pass each other in the night so they don't crash. I have to choose the life I built over the ghost of the one we wanted. I have to let you be successful without me watching from the sidelines, and you have to let me grow without pulling me back to that dorm room in Greeley. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done but staying would be a lie.

​​The clock is a thief, and the road is too long,

We sang the right words to the heaviest song.

I loved you in the shadows,

I loved you on a mountain,

I hated the light,

For showing me truly we weren't meant for the fight.

So I leave you the ghost of the girl that I was,

And I take back the heart that I gave you because—

To love you is holy, but to stay is a crime,

I’m leaving you with the name, Lyss.

I’m leaving the 'us' that lived in the plural. From now on, when someone calls my name in a crowded room, I won't turn around expecting to see you standing there. I’m taking my name back, and I’m letting yours go.

Goodbye to the right soul, at the wrong goddamn time.