Those days we used to sit on the dock at the lake and talk about our future. We let our legs swing free, feet dangling into the water. Every so often we’d dive into the murky water to wash away the sheen of sweat that had formed from the hot, humid Texas air.

We both had big plans to escape the shackles of the small town we had grown up in. You with your football scholarship and me with my academic scholarship; first stop: University of Texas, next stop: the World. Always by each other’s side. Yes, we had plans.

As the late evening sun went down in the west, the mosquitoes began to swarm and we dreaded going home. Being apart, even for a few hours, was the hardest thing to a teenager. We didn’t know that the being apart would eventually last a lifetime.