If you would have told me in 1998 that Travis was going to be one of my ride-or-dies, I would have laughed in your face. He was jock-adjacent, belonged to one of those big-ass Baptist churches, and we never saw each other outside of those giant parties everyone got invited to.
Somehow by senior year my friend group included him, and I realized how sweet he really was. Soft spoken, funny, fashionable, and just easy to be around.
But we still weren't ride-or-die yet.
In college I visited him in Atlanta. He would take me to a line dancing bar, and we would drunken two-step with the a much older, countryer crowd. I would crash at his place, and was never worried that he would do the drunk-guy-friend slide into bed with me.
On one drunken night in Athens, I found out something I wasn't supposed to know, Travis was dating men. I don't remember what I said or how it all exactly went down, but that night showed us both just how much we could trust one another.
He became my secret keeper too. I told him petty gossip, the traumas of my childhood, the good things that I was praying would happen. He held all of it close, and never judged, or tried to fix it.
Now, 20+ years in, he is still showing up when it matters most. I hope I can be as good a friend to him as he has been to me.