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

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.

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.

***

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 after my date’s car broke down.

Everyone thought we were ridiculous.

They all believed we’d eventually realize we belonged together, but we laughed.