We’d gone on different Saturdays. During our last conversation, we’d changed the date twice. Somehow, each of us had walked away remembering a different one.
For 20 years, I believed Jack chose not to come. For 20 years, Jack believed the same thing about me.
Neither of us spoke, because suddenly, the world wasn’t making sense anymore.
I sank into a chair. My heart was hammering. “This is ridiculous.”
Jack laughed.
The sound wasn’t happy. It was stunned. “I know.”
“We lost 20 years because of a misunderstanding?”
“Looks that way.”
I covered my face with one hand. Part of me wanted to laugh, part of me wanted to scream, and part of me suddenly understood why he’d kept the photographs.
Because the story he’d been carrying was the same one I’d been carrying. Just from the opposite side. Neither of us had gotten an ending. Neither of us had gotten an answer.
