Between us

On long-distance friendship and how much I love my best friend

May 15, 2025

I was declaring wars on my own heart in tweets. Around six years ago, ripe with heartache and angst, hidden behind quirky usernames and characters in profile pictures. I had wathed New moon every morning and every evening, been to the therapist only to leave even angrier, left to my own devices on a god forsaken platform like twitter where I poured out my sorrows in threads and left claw marks on my phone screen. In the midst of the darkness, the thickest fog, a light glimmered. A golden orb that pulled me in with its warmth. She said she was going through the same shit as I was, and for the first time I felt truly known, truly seen. Something in me changed that day, when our lives connected like comets meeting in the cosmos, and I knew I would never be the alone ever again.

To set the scene — listen to this!

We talk every day, all of the time. She has this brilliant british accent (because she is very british) and I love hearing her talk about her life in her part of the world. I tell her about all of my travels to London, how I grew up on british youtubers and One Direction. I tell her about my simple swedish life in the forest. She laughs at my ‘bubbly’ swedish accent. She knows every fibre of my being, every passing thought, every secret, every emotion. In the thick of quarantine, we were constantly hanging out on facetime and laughing until we were out of breath. We even united in a sort of ironic yet unironic love of Maroon 5. Everytime we would call, one of us would start singing sugar and then we’d burst out laughing for ages. It makes me giggle everytime one of their songs play unprompted. After quarantine, I got to watch her get ready for dates in real time and later she would tell me all about them. She has dated some questionable people, but one date was different. She got ready and went out and something in the air was changed, like fate had intervened. We had no idea when we interlinked later on facetime, that she’d met the love of her life.

Somehow, over the years, we grew up. Barely noticable since it happens quietly on our own ends of the globe. We talk all the time, and if we don’t I can feel her, always. When I got my heart broken a few years back, she was the one to pick up the pieces. I can barely imagine what a task that must have been — trying to save whatever what was left of me from a different part of the world. But she did, brilliantly as well. I do not think I would have survived anything if not for her. That experience brought us even closer, like we existed in a space unrelated to our physical bodies. Like time and space had melted off our bones and a third thing morphed out of the nothingness. Or, not nothingness, we are everything, this space was morphed out of love that transcends beyond oceans, forests and blue skies. At my worst days it was like she sat next to me, comforting me like only a sister could. At my best days, she is evergreen in her presence. The thought rarely occurs to me, some days I even forget that I have never met her in real life. I feel like I have. A long time ago. Like we were two stars on the same night sky, or the sun and the moon greeting each other across the horizon. Or two wild horses running across mountains, in lavender fields. In every way, I feel like I have known her all of my lives, yet I cannot know what she smells like, or what her face looks like when she gets the sun in her eyes, or what she sings when she is alone, what colours her socks are, where she goes to grocery shop. Those things that are completely mundane, but set rituals in her life that a screen cannot let me learn. Of course there are ways to fabricate this, but we have never needed that. She is like the sun rising over my city, present and loving like I imagine god would feel like if I believed in it. I do not need to know the colour of gods socks, you know? But god, supposedly, exists in everything. And I know for a fact that She does. It is wild to think she knows me better than anyone while also not knowing how I make my morning coffee, or what perfume I wear. So I sent her a letter!

We have always had each other adresses, but I cannot recall if I have ever sent her a proper letter. Again, we never needed to, we were always hanging out. But since I have revived my letter writing to friends (I have only stayed consistent with writing to my grandmother) I decided it was time! I even drew a portrait of her sweet dog and once I finished that I wasted no time in sending everything her way. Writing to her felt euphoric, like my hands knew the words would be carried by my best friend in new ways than before. I wrote about my week, about my horrifying choir director (lol) and it felt natural. Like I had done nothing else but this my entire life. When I finished I sprayed everything with my perfume. Sent a silent non-prayer that the scent would last all the way. And today she messaged me letting me know it did and that dose of genuine happiness sparked this entire piece. Something so simple as scent, is so deeply intimate when its brought to the light like this. I mean, I have never had to think about scent in that way. But now when she got my letters, and even she made remarks about it, is that what you smell like? it felt like I had given her such a small but living piece of me.

As for the date she had sooo many years ago that turned out to be the love of her life? Yes, a while back now I recieved an invitation to an iMessage group chat where she had added all of her friends and told us she was going to propose. I cried a lot. She is now engaged and they are perfect !! They bought a house and adopted the sweetest little pig-dog and everyday I treasure them both and cannot wait until I can meet her for the first time and also her fiancée <3

We were two sad girls who found each other on twitter, and now she has asked me to be a bridesmaid for her wedding. One day she will be my bridesmaid, too!

And if you are reading this, Hannah — I love you! I cannot wait to meet you finally and sing Maroon 5 in your living room, like we were meant to do!