After a month of anticipation, the night had finally come to take off: we were on our way to New York. As I watched my dad drive away in our blue Accord, excitement filled me like delicious crème filling. I grinned widely at Haley and let out several happy squeals. In just a few short hours, we would be standing in Greenwich Village, and best of all, I would get to see Jimmy again and we would all hang out like we used to.
“Okay Haley, be sure to get some sleep on the plane ride okay?” I said in a very solemn voice. “Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to make it through our first day in New York”.
I looked at him until we established eye contact for at least a few seconds, so he would know I was serious.
“Seriously, don’t stay up the entire night watching episodes of 30 Rock and reading the chronicles of Y, the Last Man on your netbook”.
“Yeah, I know”, he said in an uncharacteristically sincere voice.
I felt reassured by this; reassured also, because I knew he had stayed up all night the night before packing and he’d told me he was feeling tired when we were waiting in line to pass through airport security.
Sure enough, within a few minutes of takeoff, he was conked out with his arms crossed against his chest. I glanced at his suddenly unconscious form next to me with mild surprise, as sleeping in an economy-class seat on a plane 
was about as comfortable as sleeping naked on metal bleachers while it’s hailing ice. Of course, Haley could probably fall asleep standing up in the middle of a rock concert as long as he was in the dozing mood, so I wasn’t too surprised. I, however, did not manage to get a single minute of sleep that whole five hour long flight. Not one single damn minute. I did manage to watch Pink’s “Funhouse” music video at least 3 times. I never realized just how much I loathed Pink until the 3rd time I watched her strut her bizarrely masculine body to that horrible and theoretically-illogical blend of punk pop music. But now as I’m writing this, I don’t feel the complete detestation that I was hit with in waves while sitting on that plane, so I probably don’t actually hate Pink. On that plane though, I was sending her hate beams as well as I could with my tired and semi-glazed eyes. Then I sent hate beams to Zach Morris. Screech. Slater—especially Slater. Those stupid people that go on infomercials. Haley.
I just couldn’t fall asleep. The hours passed by one after another and finally, 5 positions and one last failed attempt of lying down on a sleeping Haley’s lap with my legs sticking out into the aisle later, I gave up. I sat up in my hard, perfectly 90-degree angled chair and clicked through the television channels on the little screen in front of me for the last, and longest, hour of the flight while dawn patiently lightened the black skies. By the time we touched ground at JFK, I felt like I’d just pulled an all-nighter because, well, I did.
New York City was grey. It wasn’t very cold, which was a nice surprise, and by the time we arrived at D’Agostino Hall, my cheeks were flushed from the brisk walk from the subway station. There was still some time before Jimmy got out of class, so Haley and I waited in the lobby.
I felt nervous. I hadn’t seen him since the night he left for New York two months ago. We’d sat together for a long time in small corner on the carpeted floor of a walkway that led to the security gate and when the time had finally come for him to leave, I’d cried and hugged him a long time.
I paced around a few times in the lobby and told Haley I was going to the bathroom. I splashed some cold water on my face and when I stepped back into the lobby, there he was, looking just as I remembered. I called out his name, he saw me and smiled, and I threw my arms around him.
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