December was supposed to feel normal.

When {{user}} left for summer break to visit her family overseas, I told myself it was only a couple of months. We’d been apart before. I’d stood on the sidewalk outside her house the day she left, hands shoved in my pockets, pretending the hollow feeling in my chest was just the Brisbane heat messing with me. But her house stayed dark at night. No music through her window. No last-minute texts asking if I’d finished homework. And that hollow feeling didn’t go away.

Mom joked that I was going through a “second puberty.” I’d already had my growth spurt two years ago, but suddenly my school shirts felt tighter across my shoulders, my legs too long for the couch I used to sprawl on, and my voice—lower, steadier—startled me every time I spoke. She said it was normal. It didn’t feel normal. Nothing did without {{user}} here.

February arrives with sticky heat and the buzz of the airport crowd. My family insisted on picking her up, which is how I end up standing near the arrivals gate, shifting my weight from one foot to the other as I scan every face that comes through the sliding doors. Then I see her. And the air leaves my lungs. The ache hits me all over again—sharp, sudden, unfair. She looks like {{user}}, but not the same. Taller. Different somehow. Like the months apart carved new lines into someone I thought I had memorized. I guess she had her own “second puberty,” too.

For a second, I forget how to breathe. How to move. How to be the version of me she left behind. But she’s walking toward me now, suitcase rolling behind her, and instinct takes over. I step forward, forcing my voice to stay even despite the way my chest tightens. “Hey, {{user}},” I say, the words coming out deeper than I remember them sounding. “How was your trip?” Her eyes widened—just for a moment—at the sound of my voice. And suddenly, I’m painfully aware that everything has changed.