It was the beginning of March and long-time friends Efe Johnson and Kristina Heeger were taking advantage of their spring break from college to take a one-week vacation to London.
The two college sophomores who had known each other since their freshman year at Fairfax High School were going to different colleges — Johnson at University of Pennsylvania and Heeger at Virginia Tech — but saw their European trip as a chance to catch up, Johnson said.
During one afternoon, the two took the opportunity to visit a staple of any UK tour: Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. Heeger, Johnson said, was instantly mesmerized by the sight.
"I just remember when we walked in, she was taking all these pictures of Big Ben, doing all of the different angles," Johnson said. "I was like, 'sweetheart, it's just a clock.'"
It was a memorable trip for the two friends, who had graduated together from Fairfax High School in 2005 and stayed close over the years, Johnson said.
ON A COLD and wind-swept Monday at the Virginia Tech campus in southwest Virginia a little more than six weeks later, Heeger's roommate and friend Chalinee Tinaves received an email from the college around 9:45 a.m., advising her that a shooting had occurred at a dormitory. Seeing that Heeger wasn't present at their off-campus apartment that morning, Tinaves sent a text message to her cellular phone.
As the next hour unfolded and news of the shooting rampage on her school's campus that morning was broadcast over cable news, Tinaves continued to try and contact her friend. When she went to her room to check Heeger's class schedule that morning, her fears were realized. She was enrolled in a 9:10 a.m. French class at Norris Hall: the site of the shootings.
"At first, you didn't think it's possible, considering there are 27,000 people here and on Monday of all days I'd figure she'd sleep in," Tinaves said. "Of all the possibilities, you didn't expect to see that it's your friend who was there."
TINAVES CALLED Johnson, and the two anxiously awaited word of their friend. Relief would soon wash over her when, around noon, Heeger's stepfather called Tinaves and told her that while she had been injured, Heeger was alive and at a local hospital.
Heeger had been shot three times, once in the lower back, once in the lower body and once from a bullet that ricocheted and struck her foot, but she was stable and would make a full recovery, her friends and family would eventually learn.
Tinaves was the first to arrive at the hospital, the start of a seemingly endless cascade of Kristina Heeger's friends and family, looking to see how the 19-year-old was doing.
Heeger has since been released from the hospital and has returned to her parents' home in the Tysons Corner area of Vienna as she works towards making a full recovery, according to her friends.
DESCRIBED BY FRIENDS as genuine, hilarious, cheerful and beautiful, the outpouring of support and concern for Heeger was greater than anyone could have imagined. After word got out that she had been hospitalized in the shooting, so many flowers were delivered to her that the hospital had to stop accepting them, said her friend and fellow Virginia Tech sophomore Kyle Facada, originally from Fairfax.
"You could see in that right there just how many people care about her," said Facada, who lives across the street from Heeger in Blacksburg. "She's a really great, fun person, very honest. She has a great sense of who she is."
A sophomore studying international relations, Kristina is fluent in her native Russian and is striving to attain fluency in French, her minor at Virginia Tech, Johnson said. A former advanced placement student and a "sucker" for reality television, she loves to hang out with her friends and family, including her newborn baby brother, Luke, her friends added.
Heeger and Johnson worked together part-time at an Olive Garden restaurant in the Fair Lakes area of Fairfax during the latter half of high school. Heeger still keeps in touch with her former workplace, as she will regularly drop in to say hi on trips home from school, said the restaurant's service manager Cynthia Holmes.
It was her exuberant personality that made her so memorable among customers and her fellow employees during her two years there, Holmes added.
"Everyday when she came in, regardless of what's going on, she was in a great mood," she said. "Even if you were in a bad mood, she'd smile and just instantly put you in a good mood."
HEEGER IS BRINGING that same optimistic approach to her injury and recovery process, according to her friends. Less than one week after the shooting she has already begun to walk and is talking about her eventual return to school, they said.
"She's a very strong girl, I think she'll make a full recovery," Facada said. "She's that type of person."
Tinaves agreed.
"She's a beautiful person both inside and out, she's a very warm and welcoming friend," she said. "I think she'll be fine."
Heeger will have no shortage of support from her friends and family during her recovery.
"She's family, there's no other way of saying it," Johnson said. "We've spent so much time together over the years, I'm a part of her family and she's a part of mine."