When We Were 19, My Best Friend and I Promised That If We Were Both Single at 60, We’d Find Each Other – I Turned 60 Last Tuesday, & My Old Landline Rang

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

years old. I’d spent most of my life learning how to live without Jeffrey.