I first thought “I love you” sitting in my car, driving back home in late December with the windows down and picking up speed as I turned onto the highway. A vinyl record was my passenger, haphazardly laid flat in the space you used to occupy. It was too nice outside to be just days from the new year. It still felt like September to me.

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Before September, I would take a picture of you in my passenger seat with flyaways littered across your face. Your smile would crease sun-baked skin and reveal your teeth under the shadow of rosy lips. Summertime freckles would emerge in place of high school acne and each speck worked with the last to make your own constellations. Despite my best efforts, I never caught your blue eyes in that picture. They were too busy watching the photographer. 

We bought homecoming tickets in September, matching necklaces in October, and Christmas presents in December. The most ecstatic I've been to give a present to someone was that glossy hardcover book wrapped in a yellow bandana with your favorite candies poking out of the folds. We sat cross-legged on my bed, sharing smiles as you picked apart your gifts. You didn’t have a gift for me, but you remembered which album we belted out loud together (although you dropped out and just listened to me) and ordered a copy from Amazon. I haven’t sung for anybody since. 

The space between December and January, those few weeks when Christmas tidings turn to New Year's wishes, was when you made your leave. We celebrated the year we had spent together in fifteen minutes as you ushered in a new one without me. You returned my freshly washed sweatshirt, using it as the wrapping for a parting gift you insisted I take: eggshell white cardboard encasing an album of cream-colored plastic.

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The wind from driving on the highway pulled hair out of my bun, piece by piece. The cold breeze shot into my nostrils, pushing down into my lungs, forcing me to breathe the new December air. Why am I still in September when you’ve already found yourself in the new year? The wind wrestling to get in and out the window made a violent noise, but not enough to silence what I felt growing beside me. I looked over, and you were back in that seat again. You were wearing a black hoodie with a face of paper skin. You were holding all the heat of the summer.