Dear Carly,

I know you are leaving me soon. It will not be easy watching you, with your life packed up into a few Tupperware bins, placing them in the back of a van, and driving away. I will still be sitting, parked, in the driveway. My rust-speckled doors and newly straightened tires. I’ll see through the rearview mirror as you turn right around the cul-de-sac. Freedom — only a few hundred miles away.

I can’t wait to hear all about your adventures in the city. All the concerts you’ve experienced, what new person you’ve started sharing pillows with, and all the new secrets that just can’t be held over summer. There will be more for you there than you could ever find in the black, two-laned asphalt of this town.

I will miss it. I will miss you. The winter night slushie runs, the drive-through whispers, and the music that could not be any louder.

However, what I will miss the most is the summer breeze, an easy 35 miles per hour, and the orange and purple sky tempting us to chase it all night. So we comply, and we just go.

We pass churches where children have cried and barns where first kisses have been exchanged. We pass houses where parties and memories are stored in basement closets; forests where smoke and good laughs have been thrown into the breeze like leaves floating on autumn winds. We pass swingsets where hearts have been broken and a treehouse that hushed giggles have been haunting for years.

And we drive.

And we push.

And we stretch our fender for any brush of freedom.

And we find it. On a big hill, in the middle of a farm. Stars and house lights dancing in the moonlight.

I know that my four doors and sunroof are not enough to keep you here. I know there’s a world outside of this county that you need to see. But the crack on my mirror, the funny smell that lingers, the bump on my fender, and the dent in my side… they will always hold you here, to me.

Go. Chase the sunset.

Always yours,

Delilah