Dear Sarah,

I once heard this quote on Beverly Hills 90210: "The more things change, the more they stay the same." At the time I heard it, I thought it was bullshit -- melodramatic teenage drama crap that, when you really take the time to dissect the "deep thought", turns out to mean nothing. Yet for some reason, this silly sentence has always stuck with me.

I'm living in St. Petersburg right now, studying at the Vaganova Ballet Academy. I remember sitting on your big, fluffy white princess bed only three years ago, talking about how one day, someday, we would make it out of awful Henderson and be "real dancers". We made plans, composing our future like a beautiful, hopeful sonata.

My life has completely changed since we stopped speaking, almost two years ago. I quit working at the diner, got into VBA, broke-up with Paul, and buried my father. I am here, in this wonderful, strange, shadowy city; I don't smoke cigarettes - ever, and when confronted with an unpleasant emotion, I deal with it. Not that I will ever escape my desire to escape, but now, for the most part, I just deal with it.

There were moments when I didn't think it was possible to love anyone more than I loved you. Though, admittedly, it is hard to separate what we were with what we did. We both shared the flight over fight reaction to life, and I have never met anyone with whom the escape was sweeter. We understood each other so well, and were great travel partners in the pursuit of leaving our lives far, far behind. Driving around, listening without shame to catchy pop music, eating at shitty diners while strategizing about how to get more pills, wandering around Vegas like kids in a candy store, I was so miserably happy. I think you were, too.

We were in something together. Maybe not the most noble of pursuits, but one with constant and instant gratification and the unbelievable pseudo-bonding power of drugs. It was the best of times because it was the worst of times.

I often think about Angel, the gay hooker we met in Vegas. We were so high that day - high from the pills and high from the achievement of scoring them. Angel was so young, fifteen I think, and heartbreakingly innocent. I guess he was just like us. He told us about his fucked-up life and we marveled at how seemingly different it was from our own. He still had so much optimism, talking about going back to high school, getting a different job, and making things right with his family. Sometimes he would call us for rides, and, in the spirit of "anything is fun when you're high", we helped him out. I've looked for him many times since we stopped talking -- hoping, naively, that if I found him I would also find us. I never did see him again; he had a bad crystal meth addiction and I fear that has something to do with his disappearance, like I'm sure it did with yours.

And now, here I am. Things couldn't be more different. I have no idea who you are anymore, where you are, what you are doing. Do you still battle the same demons? Are you still dancing? Do you ever think about me? I wonder about you all the time. The curiosity sharpens the memories until they stand high on a shelf - my mythic youthful foolishness that I am scared is long gone. I am grown-up now, or at least a convincing facsimile. It may only have been a few years since these times I romanticize, but that life is light years away.

I wonder why I wonder so much. So far, I have come up with this:

I am still the same; I still love you the same and Lord knows, I still love drugs the same. I still secretly love "Complicated" (our song) the same. And the more I become who I am now, the more I realize it is just another outfit. My thoughts, feelings, desires, are still the same as the girl you met four years ago. I am living abroad, just like we dreamed, and becoming a real dancer, just as we planned. And as I stand here, in the future we both once wanted, I keep looking around and wondering, where are you?

I hope you are happy. I hope you are healthy. I hope you wonder about me, too. I will always love you, and I have accepted this. And I hope, maybe one day, maybe someday, we will talk again and compare notes -- try to piece together the past in a way that allows for a future. And if that day comes, I hope that I will find that you have completely changed and stayed exactly the same.

Truly,

Angela