“I promise,” I said, and I meant it with everything I had.
And for years, we kept that promise. Even when work, distance, and busy lives made our calls shorter and less frequent, we never truly lost each other.
Nora worked long hours as a waitress, while I drifted through different jobs until I eventually settled into steady work at a secondhand bookstore. Our friendship stayed strong because we had survived the same painful beginning.
One day she called me, her voice trembling with happiness.
“Ollie, I’m having a baby. You’re going to be an uncle.”
I remember the first time I held baby Leo in the hospital. His fists were tiny and wrinkled, his dark hair soft against my fingers, his eyes still struggling to focus on the world.
“Congratulations, Uncle Ollie,” she whispered. “You’re officially the coolest person in his life.”
Nora was raising Leo alone. Whenever I asked gently about his father, she would grow quiet and distant.
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