Everyone around us thought we were ridiculous.
Our families were convinced that sooner or later, we would realize what they already believed was obvious.
My mother, Erica, used to watch us sitting at the kitchen table arguing over homework.
“One day,” she would say, “you two are finally going to figure this out.”
Jeffrey would grin.
“Figure out what?”
Mom would just smile.
“You know exactly what.”
Then Jeffrey would look at me, and I would roll my eyes.
“We’re friends, Mom.”
And technically, that was true.
The truth underneath it was something neither of us was brave enough to examine.
I think
we were both more afraid of losing the friendship than we were excited by the possibility of becoming something more.
So we left things exactly as they were.
Until one summer night when we were nineteen.
We had both gone on terrible dates.
Mine had spent nearly the entire evening talking about himself.
Jeffrey’s date had left early after they argued over some movie.
Later that night, Jeffrey and I met at our old high school football field.
The gates had been left open, so we slipped beneath the bleachers and sat in the grass.
Jeffrey leaned against one of the metal supports.
“We’re terrible at this.”
I laughed.
“At dating?”
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“At choosing people.”
“That might be true.”
He became quiet.
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.
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