My Two Best Friends and I Promised to Reunite on Christmas After 30 Years – Instead of One of the Guys, a Woman Our Age Showed Up and Left Us Speechless

And about the Christmas party, where he sat outside until the music stopped.

And about the postcards we sent and the replies he wrote but never mailed.

“He kept every one of them,” she said. “He just didn’t know if they were meant for him.”

I rubbed my hands together, the way I do when I am trying to stay grounded.

“Why did he never say anything?” I asked.

“He was afraid, Raymond,” she said.

“He was afraid the silence would confirm what he already believed.”

“And what was that?” Ted asked, staring down at the table.

“That he mattered less.”

Jennifer eventually placed a folded letter in front of us. It was sealed, the edges soft from having been handled.

“He wrote this for you,” she said quietly. “He asked me not to read it aloud.

He said it was yours.”

I hesitated before picking it up. My fingers felt clumsy as I unfolded the page.

Ted leaned in slightly, his eyes scanning the shape of Rick’s handwriting like it was a language he used to speak.

“Ray and Ted,

If you’re reading this, then I didn’t make it to our pact. But I still showed up, I guess.

I carried you with me everywhere I went, even when I didn’t know where I fit.

You were the best part of my youth, even when I felt like a footnote in it.

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