Ryan Quigley promised himself he would never go to New Orleans again.

“When I woke up in the hospital, I was like, ‘that was my first night in New Orleans and that's definitely going to be my last,’” Quigley, 26, tells PEOPLE while still recuperating from extensive injuries he sustained in the New Year’s Day terror attack in New Orleans. “I said I'll never be back there. I don't know the city and I don't ever want to get to know the city.”

But there was another promise that Quigley made, and it was a promise that he knew he couldn’t break.

“I promised him I'd take him to the Super Bowl if the [Philadelphia Eagles] made it,” Quigley remembers telling his late friend Tiger Bech, who was one of 14 people killed on Bourbon Street in the early morning hours of Jan. 1. “I'm still going to make that happen, and we're going to rewrite the story by going back to New Orleans and hopefully leave it on a positive note.”

Thanks to a personal invitation from the Eagles, Quigley will join friends and family at the 2025 Super Bowl in New Orleans on Sunday, Feb. 9, where he and Bech’s favorite team will take on the Kansas City Chiefs.

Related: Eagles Gift Super Bowl Tickets to Survivor of New Orleans New Year’s Day Attack Whose Friend Was Killed

“We always used to say that no one had more fun than us,” says Quigley, who was by Bech’s side in the early morning hours of January 1 when the attack occurred. “We went to every Eagles game. All we ever talked about was how good the Eagles were going to be. We were both huge fans.”

But ultimately, the pair was so much more than that.

“We sat next to each other at work, and we lived with each other, and we went to the gym together,” the former college football player explains of his late friend, whom he first met while on his first official football visit to Princeton University in December of 2015. “Tiger was just such a special person — full of life, full of energy, full of positivity. We were the same person. We literally would go out in the city and tell people that we were twins. We acted like each other. He was my other half. And yeah, the Eagles were definitely a big part of our friendship.”

And while the trip back to New Orleans will certainly be an emotional one, Quigley says he realizes the importance of returning to the place that took so much from him.

“I want to introduce Tiger to people that didn't know Tiger and tell them how he lived life, which I hope encourages them to live life to the fullest and count every blessing,” he says. “Going back to New Orleans was definitely a tough decision, but I promised Tiger. Literally, I said it after every Sunday [last year]. And now, the trip back is going to give me the chance to take our power back from this man that acted on evil. I don't think there's nothing else I'd rather do than to go back and rewrite the story with Tiger and leave the city of New Orleans on a positive note…and hopefully with a win.”

Of course, getting to New Orleans comes with its own challenges for Quigley himself, as he continues to battle back physically from a barrage of injuries he sustained in the terrorist attack.

“I broke my fibula, I tore my ACL and my meniscus, I had bruising all over my left leg, I had road rash all over my body, I strained every muscle in my back, I broke my nose, and I had facial lacerations all over my face,” lists Quigley, who underwent surgery on his leg on Jan. 16 and looks to have at least six months of physical therapy ahead of him. “I was an absolute mess.”

Quigley is still dealing with the mental recovery, too.

“The first few weeks, I was in pain nonstop, so I wasn't even able to think about it all,” he says. “So now, mentally, it's really been starting to hit me a lot harder. I mean, [Bech] truly was much more than a best friend. He was a brother and I know he is watching over me. I've seen hundreds of signs. Just knowing that he's so present in our lives and that he is behind that invisible veil…it’s just so clear.”

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And come Super Bowl Sunday, Quigley says he will be looking for more signs from his fellow Eagles fan that he will spend a lifetime telling the world about.

“I'm so grateful to be here, so grateful to be alive and so grateful to be able to eventually get back to a hundred percent so I can continue to share Tiger's story with the rest of the world,” he concludes. “That's truly all I want to do.”

Read the original article on People