When I was 16 my best friend was an 18 year old who lived two school districts away from me. Until that summer I had never thought it possible to have a

best friend

that was two years older. There had been childhood fantasies where I'd look up to someone my elder so much that I'd want them to treat me like a best friend, but at the end of the day I knew these were still fantasies. Age seemed to big of a barrier.

Once I got my

driver's license

I became completely mobile. This coincided with the end of the school year, and the long stretch of summer ahead. I didn't know what to do with all this freedom on my hands. And to tell you the truth I kind of was sick of hanging out with the kids at my school by this point. There's an exotic allure of hanging out with kids from a different

school district

and I guess I got sucked into that with KJ.

He was about to start as a freshmen at

college

, which should've been something to look forward to had he been going the 'traditional' university route: aka living in a dorm and all that jazz, however he was taking a more conservative path. Living at home with his parents and going to a lesser known university in town.

In a way I think the two of us put a lot of energy into my future. Hoping for the best for me. Because I still had a year before applying to schools, we could imagine the most fantastic futures for me. It was already given that I'd be living on a dorm and doing all the college jazz, and KJ never made me feel bad about it. If anything he felt like a proud father who was happy to see his son go off and live the college life.

The two of us would had a plan where KJ would transfer from his small time university to wherever I was. That way we could be at the same school, he as a junior and me as an incoming freshman. Of course KJ would have to study and work like a dog. Because he would need a good GPA to be eligible to transfer, and he'd need a lot of money to pay the tuition.

The university he was at was a good deal in terms of education and cost. It was ranked quite high, but didn't have the same prestige as similarly ranked schools. Thus the tuition was dirt cheap in comparison. KJ's plan had always been to max out as much credits at this school as he could before transferring to a 'better' school. During that time he planned on working almost full-time so that he could save up the dough to finally pay the tier-1 state university  tuition.

We spent many hours talking about this future. In the car while driving around aimlessly. At the 

cafe

past midnight drinking 

coffee

. Besides girls and who knows what else, our future is what we primarily spoke of.