Our phone calls are still going strong. An average of an hour every night. Mundane things we do with our days. He's trying to "be a better Christian" and get motivated to find a church. His roommate (a Mormon) is encouraging him.
Come November he gets to go on a special ops training for two weeks. Out in the woods, survival games or something like that. Obviously no contact.
I don't know what to do with myself. I actually talk to my roommate in the evenings.
When he gets back he has a million things to tell me. He met this really cool guy. He's so excited he had someone to talk to. He has some motivation.
And as soon as it starts it fizzles. He's depressed with being stuck in North Carolina indefinitely. He stops calling me every night.
December is my birthday. He forgets. I get nothing and get mad. He sends me a bear that he ordered from a florist. Late. Very late.
I decide he should get a lump of coal anonymously. My dad sends it to my uncle who sends it from Michigan. I send him a real Christmas present.
I have to spend Christmas day with my great aunt in Seattle since I couldn't get time off to go on our annual skiing vacation to Idaho. He calls me there. He's not impressed by the coal. My present hasn't arrived yet.
I never do get a Christmas present from him.
The first week in January he gets discharged from the Army. His dad drives out to help him move back to the mid-west. I hear from him maybe twice a week.
He gets back to his college town and eventually calls to tell me, "he'd like to back things off for a bit. he wants to keep his options open."
When I talk to him a few weeks later I'm done. I tell him I'm sick of being his safety net. I'm not his convenient go-to girl when no one else is around. I won't be there for him to come crawling back to.
In May, as I'm getting ready to go to grad school, I hear from a mutual friend. He's engaged. A girl he met in a book store after returning from North Carolina. They got married that summer, less than 6 months after meeting.
***
Later that summer I got a one line email asking what I knew about 2 small-ish towns in Washington. He was applying to be a youth pastor. I couldn't help but laugh (and ignore the email). Ironic, no?
I didn't bother following up, but now some years later, with the wonders of Google I discovered that he did move to Washington and live in one of those towns for a time. He's back in the mid-west now. I wonder what happened. But I don't really care enough to find out.
I didn't bother following up, but now some years later, with the wonders of Google I discovered that he did move to Washington and live in one of those towns for a time. He's back in the mid-west now. I wonder what happened. But I don't really care enough to find out.
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