[He] was moving on. He didn't know it, but he was leaving them behind. He'd have roommates, guys from rich families, who'd invite him home for vacation, take him skiing, sailing. He'd wear a tuxedo for debutante parties where he'd meet girls from Smith and Mount Holyoke, philosophy majors, English majors, girls with ideas who were reading the same books he was reading and other books, too, who could say things he wouldn't have exepcted them to say. He'd get interested in one of these girls and go on road trips with his friends to her college. She'd come to New Haven. They'd rendezvous in Boston and New York. He'd meet her parents. And on the first day of his next trip home, honorable Rafe would enter Mary Ann's house and leave half an hour later with a sorrowful face and heart leaping with joy. There wouldn't be many more trips home, not after that. What was there to bring him all that way?
This was from a short story by Tobias Wolff. It's one of the most crushingly sad things ive read.
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