Kristen and I had been friends since seventh grade, when I moved to a new school and found that as my assigned partner to build a diorama of the Parthenon in Social Studies, she shared the same taste in music that I did. We’d been as thick as thieves ever since. Strictly friends, but the best of.
Now, both of us 22, she was driving through the town where I lived, on her way to her first job and first apartment out of college.
Her parents had helped her load up the small Uhaul truck at their home, but couldn’t make the four-hour trip with her to help her unpack on the other end. The plan was for her to swing through my town halfway there, pick me up, and I’d contribute some muscle toward getting everything unloaded and into her new place. The next day she’d drop me off back at my place on her way home to return the truck.