Then he asked,
“What if we never figure it out?”
“We’ll survive.”
“What if we’re both still single when we’re old?”
I looked at him.
Jeffrey held out his pinky.
“If we’re both single at sixty, we stop being idiots and find each other.”
I stared at his hand.
He wasn’t joking.
“Jeffrey.”
“I mean it.”
“Why sixty?”
“Because if we haven’t figured our lives out by then, clearly we need help.”
I laughed and wrapped my pinky around his.
“Deal.”
“Deal.”
For one strange second, neither of us moved.
I remember wanting to say something else.
Something important.
But I didn’t.
Two months later, Jeffrey left for college three states away.
—
At first, distance didn’t change much.
We wrote constantly.
Long letters.
Birthday cards.
Pages filled with ordinary details that somehow felt important simply because they came from each other.
Jeffrey complained about his roommate, who apparently believed cleaning was optional.
I told him about working at the library while studying to become a teacher.
He complained about cafeteria food.
I complained about people returning library books stained with coffee.
During that first year, I probably knew more about Jeffrey’s daily life than people who lived in his dorm.
Then slowly, the letters began arriving less often.
Every week became every two weeks.
Every two weeks became once a month.
I assumed college was changing him.
But my life was changing too.
I was training to become a teacher.
I made new friends.
I went on dates.
Still, whenever anything important happened, Jeffrey remained the first person I wanted to tell.
Then, during his second year, he wrote about someone named Margaret.
She was studying nursing.
He said she was funny.
Smart.
Strong-willed.
He even wrote that he thought I would like her.
