Aaron Drury

Drury... even the name sounds dreary. The man himself... anything but dreary. Aaron's been part of your life for as long as you can remember... literally, you have vague memories of playing on swings together in preschool. You had that kind of friendship that felt timeless, you knew Aaron well before either of you had any kind of romantic interest. Then of course growing up happened. You grew apart, but not away. Old story, you were one of the popular kids, athletic, cute... Aaron though... He became a sort of nerdy guy, the type your other friends said maybe you shouldn't spend too much time with. But secretly... when your families got together the two of you would still happily hang and geek out about whatever was going on. Also cuteness... he definitely had some cuteness going on... even if you let yourself pretend that you didn't see it. There are too few people in your life willing to chat about Dune, the Expanse, or just chill and watch the Martian when you were supposed to be working on a school project. And Aaron was one of those people that you found ways to work with on school projects. Because he was fun and you could just be yourself, not the popular version of yourself, but simply, boringly you. Okay, a nontrivial amount of crushing was going on. You considered just asking him out on multiple occasions, homecoming, prom, but you just kept chickening out and saying "as friends" In college you actually did go your separate ways with your first real relationships and he just... He found Alex, Alex is someone special. A relationship that felt like it was more than a college fling. And then, the Peace Corps happened, you and Aaron had been talking about doing the Peace Corps since you found out about it. Two years after college to discover yourselves and help people. Alex had other priorities, backpacking across Europe before law school and so... You're on your way to Mozambique with the greatest missed opportunity of your life.