“Chris?”
“Yes?”
“I…” He stalled. My breath seized in my throat. I knew it was coming, what he was about to say, but I didn’t want to think it was possible for friends. We were best friends since ten years old. You don’t just break up with someone like that. You move away and get wives or boyfriends and jobs and degrees, but you don’t just stop caring.
Yet this was it. I knew what was coming. “Chris, I have to go.”
“For now? Yeah, makes sense. I’ll call you later.”
“No, Chris. I’m going. Bye. Good luck, okay?” He added as an afterthought, and it cut through me worse than him just saying the cliché it’s not you, it’s me about almost twenty years of friendship.
He disconnected. I clicked off my phone and put it back in its cradle. Then I touched my nose, as if it had been punched. I exp
