Why I didn’t go down this path is probably mostly due to my friend Aubrey.

I wouldn’t even describe us as “best friends,” exactly. We were beyond all categories like that. But for many years she was one of the few people at all in my school to be nice to me. Aubrey’s mother died when she was young (five years old) and I think she at first took a liking to me because I was the only one who didn’t treat her like some pariah and wasn’t scared in first grade to ask her about her mother’s death. I wanted to hear her story. I wanted to know her for who she was. She taught me the word “aneurysm” when I was six years old as she haltingly recounted to me exactly how her mother died. I had no doubt at all that girls and women were fully human right from the start because she was the only one to treat me like one.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about Aubrey and realizing how much she truly shaped my life. More than I realized at the time. Another story about her. Years, many years, later we were at an academic team meet and she was in the crowd as the team I was playing for won some big competition. I remember watching her face as I answered the final question that put us over the top just as time ran out. She was gazing at me, hands clenched, with such intense — I don’t even know the right words for it — euphoria and empathy and concentration and was sharing my experience so completely that in the moment when I met her eyes I don’t think I’d ever been that close to someone. And we weren’t even touching. We were a room apart. But it was like we were in the same skull. Truly, I think she was happier with the victory than I was; I was just tired after all those matches. Watching her react, though, made it mean so much more to me. It’s so good to have someone rooting for you, you know? So good.

That’s the kind of person she was. She could just be completely there, unreservedly present. After the match, she came up to hug me, pushing through the throng to get there, and I said “thank you” quietly into her ear. I could tell she knew exactly what I meant even though most people would not have. Like I said, that’s just the kind of person she was. I didn’t know it consciously at the time but she would’ve done anything for me, and I for her.

I don’t even remember what we won anymore. That trophy is long in the garbage. But I do remember her face and her look and how intense that moment was, and I will remember that for the rest of my life.