In a graduation letter written to me last May, a version of me was put to paper. I envy the girl it was written about. She is brave enough to cross the globe all on her own. She is kind enough to save a smile for every moment and every friend. She is beautiful in high school prom pictures. She is contagiously funny, wicked smart and effortlessly balanced. She is the best version of me, and she exists in the memories of the friend who wrote to me.

I cried when she read this letter out loud, surrounded by some of my closest friends in our high school parking lot at dawn. We had randomly picked names to write to, trying to wrap up Decision Day, Senior Sunrise, Graduation and goodbyes into one Covid-19 friendly event. The navy sky turned purple and pink before giving way to powder blue as we read love letters to our friendships and celebrated our successes.

I allegedly met some of these friends in middle school, by their accounts, but I don’t remember any of them before the first day of high school, so I chose to believe our friendships started there. To say the road was smooth would be a lie: From miscommunication to disagreements to prom drama that is now just a funny story, the turbulence of adolescence hit us, too. But the act of becoming a friend — of opening up ever so shyly, confessing fears over popcorn and Mean Girls and sharing laughs in between classes — transformed me as a person.

In the act of becoming their friends, waving across hallways, and offering gentle but firm advice on the frequency of Snapchats to send to a guy who honestly wasn’t that great, they also became my friends. They listened to my worries and, sometimes without words, asked if I was okay through a specific look and smile.

There is a sense of comfort in knowing I didn’t have to explain why I didn’t want to walk a specific path that night, knowing a ride would be offered before I had the chance to ask. Comfort in sharing my location with someone who would tuck a bit of worry into the corner of her heart until I sent her an “I’m home safe” text. In sharing a gentle “are you okay?” smile that offered some shelter in an unkind world. In knowing I could fall back on them, for every time I tore myself to shreds over minute GPA changes, they’d build me back up again. In knowing that the girl in the letter was real to each of them and even when she wanted to be anyone else, she was loved.

The chick flicks and rom coms we consumed growing up taught us that some dashing guy would come and sweep us off our feet. We wait for that one person who is supposed to matter more than everyone else, and in a world that prioritizes romantic relationships, it’s easy to get lost in the desire to find The One. The flashy dates and public proposals can feel like a checklist of milestones that we must mold our lives around.

But perhaps we can let ourselves savor the sweetness of love without grandeur. To be loved platonically is undemanding and unconditional, like quietly pushing the plate of fries closer in the back of a diner, carpooling karaoke or laughing so hard you forget to breathe. These moments shouldn’t be valued less than a bouquet of roses. They mean just as much, and perhaps even more.

As I sit here, 7,000 miles away from my high school friends, I reminisce bittersweetly. I am once again a first year, in her first few weeks of classes. The challenges I face now are unconventional to say the least. And yet, alongside every woman on campus, I still try to form friendships. I lock eyes across D2 and offer a soft smile hidden under a mask. I learn about others’ home countries and practice name pronunciations. I stay up unnecessarily late, bonding over quiet worries about course selections, life trajectories and summer plans. I am learning once more to love the women who are learning to love me.