Peter had Jeffrey’s eyes.
I was 60 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.
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.
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 after my date’s
