The bag was a present given to Julie on her 26th birthday. That was 364 days ago. Her parents had known she had been wanting it for a while, but even with working two part-time jobs, Julie couldn't afford it.
Despite having a college degree from a local university, Julie hadn't been able to find work in her field after graduation. She had accumulated a lot of student loan debt. In order to keep up with the payments, she had moved back in with her parents and taken any jobs she could find.
However, no one was hiring full-time, so she settled for two part-time gigs. That meant money was always tight. Despite not having to pay rent, she did have to pay a considerable amount for health insurance, even with the subsidies. All this meant that she wasn't often free to splurge on things like fancy bags.
Her parents decided to surprise her with the bags after her mom had discovered it on Julie's pinterest page. Julie was thrilled. She finally had something to stylishly carry her equipment when she went on hikes. Her day off normally consisted of finding some backroad and trekking into the wild to capture photographs of nature.
Today had been no different, well, except for the surprise snowstorm. Her car had gotten stuck and Julie didn't have enough gas or food to stay with her car. Now as she braved the cold and attempted to walk to civilization, she wondered what her parents would give her for her 27th birthday... if she survived that long.
Meanwhile, the snow kept falling...
Image source: Pexels
