years old. I’d spent most of my life learning how to live without Jeffrey.
Then, 40 minutes earlier, my childhood landline had rung. Now I was about to see him again.
I pushed open the door. Jeffrey lay in the hospital bed. He was thinner than the boy I remembered. His hair had gone white. His face had changed.
But he was still Jeffrey.
He was thinner.
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His eyes found mine.
“Ruthie.”
My throat closed. Then I noticed the chair beside his bed.
Something was waiting on it.
And the second I saw it, I gasped and stopped breathing.
Something was waiting on it.
***
Jeffrey and I became best friends when we were 17. Not boyfriend and girlfriend. Just Jeffrey and Ruth.
He dated other girls. I went out with other boys. I even went to prom with someone else, though my best friend ended up driving me there
about a movie.
Losing my best friend.
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We met at our old high school football field afterward. The gates were open, so we climbed under the bleachers and sat on the grass.
Jeffrey leaned back against a metal support.
“We’re bad at this.”
“Dating?”
“Choosing people.”
I laughed.
“We’re bad at this.”
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “What if we never get it right?”
“We’ll survive.”
“What if we’re both single forever?”
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I looked at him. Then Jeffrey held out his pinky.
“If we’re both single at 60, we’ll stop being idiots and find each other.”
I stared at his hand.
He wasn’t laughing anymore.
“Jeffrey.”
“I’m serious.”
“What if we never get it right?”
“Why 60?”
“Because if we haven’t figured things out by then, we obviously need help.”
I hooked my pinky around his.
“Deal.”
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He smiled.
“Deal.”
For one second,
