I can hardly believe that tonight I will spend the last night in the apartment we lovingly call The Deuce. A year and a half ago, three excited, happy, somewhat messed-up, ordinary girls moved in, glad to be escaping their former place of residence with its rude management, broken air conditioner, and slow maintenance staff. We were great roommates, and better friends.

Seven months later, Megan was sleeping in the bed across the room from mine, and Carmen and I converged downstairs as we both had to leave for school or work. We went to the door to leave, and there was a letter waiting for us. “Dear Carmen & Kat,” it began. Carmen gave it one glance and said to me, “I can’t read this right now or I’ll cry. You take it.” It was the morning of Megan’s wedding, and after she was married she would be moving across the country to New Jersey. We were both already feeling her absence acutely.

When Megan moved out I took over the room. I had to fill it up and get excited about making it my own or else it would be too sad. But the excitement and comfort of my own space didn’t keep me from having a breakdown a week later, partly having to do with a romantic relationship that was falling apart, but a lot to do with a best friend that I had come to rely on who was now gone. I don’t deal with change very well.

Carmen and I adjusted to our new situation and we became closer than ever. We were sometimes each other’s only real friend in this city. But a month ago she moved her things into a storage space in Austin, which included most of our furniture, and moved herself away as well. The apartment became empty in more ways than one. Thankfully this time around I have a romantic relationship that is not falling apart to keep me occupied, but I have spent less time at home than ever before.

A week ago I moved the remainder of the living room furniture into my parents’ house for them to keep. I will have new roommates soon, and my $50 garage sale couch won’t be needed anymore. I quit grocery shopping about a month ago to force myself to eat what I have and clean out the pantry. I started packing up my books and other belongings a week ago, although I’m not finished yet. When I come in the door now I head straight to my room, the one place that retains a semblance of homeyness, where I can close the door and imagine that the apartment looks just like it always has outside, with Carmen just down the hall, her clothes hanging to dry on the banister.

The fellowship of those three ordinary girls has broken apart. Each of us has moved on to a new phase of life: Megan to marriage and seminary, Carmen to graduate school, and me to new roommates and an apartment with granite countertops in an area of town in which my boyfriend won’t beg me not to walk outside alone. I know I have a lot to look forward to in my life, but a part of me knows that what the three of us had–not just our comfort in being roommates or our friendship in this unique phase of life, but the feeling of family–was special beyond words and now we can’t ever get it back in the same way.

So I will do what I have to do and I will make the best of it with my new roommates, who actually are good friends of mine. We will paint the walls of our new apartment and hang pictures and make it look oh so cute. We will forge our new pattern of life and fall into our routines and learn each other’s schedules. We will become closer friends, and maybe there will be tension sometimes but we will work it out. I will love it because I am easily pleased. But in the back of my mind I will picture Carmen’s messy room across the hall and the perpetual sound of Gilmore Girls playing on the TV downstairs whenever Megan was around…and I will want it all back.