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year. Mike played first-chair alto saxophone in the school bands with me, and I thought I had him pegged. Earrings, muscles, attitude, and he could probably grow a beard—this guy was definitely too cool for me. But when Kristen was around, Mike opened up and I learned that he was as kind and genuine as she was. He was able to draw me out of myself, just like Kristen, and we eventually became friends, too. He taught me mind-blowing sax techniques (do not read that incorrectly) that I never would have learned during my own weekly lessons. And we traded stories about our unusual hobbies—mine included halter-breaking cattle and making dioramas, while he dabbled in coonskin caps and burying machinery in the ground, a snowmobile being his crowning achievement. “I know how to pick my men,” Kristen would say, laughing.
    When Mike left for college a year later, he jokingly asked me to take care of Kristen for him, a responsibility that I took very seriously in my own Asperger syndrome–y way.
    When Kristen came down with the chicken pox during her senior year, for instance, I showed up at her door to surprise her with a get-well kit. A kit that included a new butter dish (just because), a handful of batteries (why not), and my own personal copy of When Harry Met Sally. (I was crazy about Nora Ephron movies—just one more thing to make me the coolest kid in school.) I’d always found that movie to be good medicine, and it seemed to work wonders for Kristen as well.
    “Thank you for coming over,” she said when it was time to go home. “And thanks for my butter dish and batteries. Only you . . .” She laughed.
    I covered my nose with my hand, made my face go blank, and told her that I had a wonderful time helping her feel better. She covered her nose and said she’d consider getting the chicken pox more often. With that, I scurried off to my car, clutching my videotape to my chest.
    Coolest kid in school.
     
    When Kristen went away to college, we didn’t see each other as much. Still, our friendship grew stronger. I would call her with funny stories, and she would call me just to see how I was doing. During holidays and summer breaks, she and Mike and I would get together and hang out. But I no longer needed to take care of her for Mike. She had sorority sisters and loads of friends. She had college and graduate school. Then Mike proposed, and suddenly she had a fiancé. Then just as suddenly, one day, she didn’t.
    A few months before she and Mike were to be married, he and his brother, Jason, died in a car accident. Kristen’s friends from college took turns staying with her at her parents’ house for the first few weeks after the accident. I had just graduated from college in Florida and had returned to Illinois to begin my career as an engineer a few months prior. I visited Kristen whenever I could, my presence little more than a reminder of support. I had no idea how to console someone, even my close friend. I wanted to take care of her but when it counted most I was at a loss. I also felt strange because I had witnessed the accident.
    I was living alone at the time, in a suburban apartment across the street from Jason and his fiancée, Lisa, who was out with Kristen on the night of the accident. It was late at night and I wasn’t yet asleep when I heard the screeching tires, the jarring impact, and the sickening drone of a car horn that couldn’t stop blaring. I scrambled out of bed and ran to my patio, where I called 911. I couldn’t see the wreck from where I was standing, and I was hopeful that it sounded worse than it actually was. I waited outside in my underwear until the emergency vehicles arrived, and then I said a prayer for the victims and returned to bed, shivering from the adrenaline and the cold November air.
    I learned the next morning that the accident I’d heard was Mike and Jason’s and that neither of them had survived. Jason died immediately, Mike a few hours later in the hospital in a