Page 39 of Thick & Thin

“Remember your promise,” I said, hoping she thought about me as much as I knew I was going to be thinking about her while I was gone.

“I will.”

Before I pulled her in and kissed her once more, I turned away and left the room.

After hugging my mom and dad goodbye, I climbed into my sister’s Ford Explorer and waved goodbye to my parents and Jenny who were standing on the front porch.

Once we pulled out and started the trip, I sat quietly in the back seat while Genie and her husband, Jimmy, drove me to Fort Jackson in Columbia for processing.

My decision to go into the Army wasn’t something I made lightly, but without my parents telling me, I knew college wasn’t something my family could afford. And while Jenny had always had the brains to earn scholarships, I played football all four years of high school. College scouts didn’t often come to our small town, and even if they had, my grades were never great. I did well enough to stay on the team and graduate.

Without the option of college, I knew I wanted a camouflage future. At least in the military, I could blow shit up and get my hands dirty. It seemed like a good plan until I was walking away from Jenny. I hadn’t expected it to be so hard to leave her and my family behind. Even though I was only going another state over to Georgia for basic training, it felt like thousands of miles every time I thought about Jenny not being a few minutes down the road from me.

I closed my eyes and thought of our last minutes together. The combustion I felt when our lips touched. I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to go for it. All that pent-up emotion and desire spilled over when I knew I had to say goodbye. I couldn’t leave her, knowing the way I felt about her—not knowing if I would get to come back before she left for college in Texas—without at least showing her a glimpse of my heart. And so, with no clue whether our friendship would survive another kiss, I leaned in and kissed her. But what was crazier than that was the fact she had kissed me back.

When everything was said and done, and if it was what she wanted, as well, I was going to change the shape of our relationship. Over the years and through a few girlfriends and hook-ups, I realized one very important thing about myself.

I was in love with Jenny Michaels, and I wanted to be with her.

Not for her body, which was hidden perfection, but because she was my best friend. She knew me like no one else, and I knew her. She cared about me and my well-being, not because she wanted something from me like the other girls, but because she was a genuine person. Jenny made me laugh and enjoyed doing the things I enjoyed doing. We were perfect for each other. I just didn’t notice or understand until I was older and wiser.

I was going to be the lucky fucker who got her. Technically, I was the lucky fuck who had always had her. After years of being near her, of knowing her and slowly falling in love with the person she was, I was going to step up and say the words.

You’re mine.

And she was. Just as I was hers.

There were other girls, but she was only one who got me.

I rode in the back of Genie’s SUV watching as the sun peaked in the sky, and with my mind in the clouds and on Jenny, we seemed to make it Fort Jackson in no time.

Basic training wasexactly as I expected it to be. After being processed, I was bussed to Fort Benning, and as soon as I stepped foot off the bus, things got intense.

“Move it,” the first drill sergeant I saw said to each recruit as we exited the bus. “Drop those bags and line up! Move! Move! Move!”

Things didn’t seem to slow down from that point on. Whether I was running drills with my unit, rushing through obstacle courses, or inhaling my meal in the thirty seconds we had to eat in the chow hall, there was never a moment to stop and think about Jenny, much less figure out a way to call her since my sergeant refused to let us have our phones.

There were burns on my hands from the ropes course and blisters on my feet from breaking in my new combat boots. My body ached in a way I had never experienced, not even when Richard Clemmons, the biggest motherfucker on our defensive line at West Ridge High School, had stormed his way through the line and took me down several times in one practice. It was a whole other level of extreme, and I loved every second of it. I had never pushed my body so hard, and the exertion made for a hard night’s sleep.

What I hadn’t expected was the limited amount of personal time I would get. My conversations with Jenny and my family were few and far between, and I missed them like crazy. At night before I passed out from the day, I would lay and daydream about what it would be like when Jenny and I were together again. And when I closed my eyes, it was visions of her face that rocked me to sleep.

I dreamed of her on a nightly basis.

Her smile.

Her laughter.

The way she would slug me in the arm with the playful expression that I came to love so much.

I missed her so badly it stung, but it gave me a reason to push myself even harder during the drills. If I was moving, I wasn’t thinking, and if I wasn’t thinking, I wasn’t dwelling over Jenny and leaving her behind. Even if she was leaving for Texas soon, I still felt as though I was leaving her and not the other way around.

She was unable to make it to my first visitation because she was sick, and when I talked to her on the phone before my parents arrived, I could have sworn she was crying. The one thing I knew about Jenny was she never cried.

“Are you upset?” I asked into the phone, trying to keep the guys from my unit from hearing our conversation.

“I mean, yeah. I hate that I’m not there for you.”

“Are you crying?”

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