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

That’s when I finally understood something I should’ve known years earlier.

I was in love with Jeffrey.

I sat on my bedroom floor with his letter in my lap and cried because I’d waited too long to understand my own feelings.

That night, I started writing to him. I got several pages in.

I told him I loved him and thought I always had.

Then I tore it up.

If he were happy, I didn’t want to ruin it. So I kept being his friend for a while.

***

In the summer of 1986, a final letter arrived.

I knew something was wrong before I opened it. Jeffrey’s letters usually started with a joke.

This one didn’t.

“Ruth,

Margaret and I are getting married. The ceremony is in August.”

I sat at our kitchen table staring at the sentence. I kept reading.