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I’m surrounded by day and night. Nice try though. You can
send whatever food you want, as long as it’s healthy. The other catch is that
you have to buy enough for the entire platoon or they won’t let me have any.
There’s like 80 guys in my platoon, so have at it. One dude got a huge box of
granola bars and Gatorade packets from his mom, so we all got to have that.
    Tell Ashley and Sarah (and anyone else that
asks) that I died. That way, when I come back from the dead, they’ll be so
amazed that they have sex with me again and forgive me for never calling them
after the first time. You are my
secretary, and you better not mess up. I expect a full list of my missed calls
when I get back. Speaking of my phone, will you bring it to graduation with
you? It’s in my nightstand.
    Of course you and Tim are fine. You’re
always fine. Dump him, E. He’s not right for you and you know it. He’s like the
evil character that infiltrates the sunny neighborhood in ‘Leave it to Beaver.’
All right, I’m gonna go.
I’ll be expecting a big box of civilian food before the week is out.
    Be
back soon,
    Spence.
    P.S.
Thank you for writing me. You have no idea how good it was to hear from you.

 
    I put away my
writing materials with a sigh. I re-read the part of my letter about Tim and
wondered if I should scratch it out. I really didn’t like that pansy-assed goody-two-shoes.
I meant every word I said to her that night before I left. Even though I knew
that I wasn’t right for her, that didn’t mean she should be with just anybody.
My new, and so far pretty well suppressed, feelings for her had nothing to do
with it. Tim didn’t care about Ellie. He just wanted a hot trophy wife lined up
for when he was a fancy doctor.
    No matter how I
felt about Ellie, I wasn’t going to try to make something more than friends out
of our relationship. We wanted different things, and our friendship meant too
much for me to start something with her and then always be leaving her behind.
I couldn’t offer her the stability she deserved, so I knew it wasn’t just
jealously that made me want her to break things off with Tim. She could do better,
that was all.
    I stood to face
Mills, who was still lying on the rack above my own. “Are you still pouting?”
    “No, I’m over it.
I know you only make tiny dick jokes to make yourself feel better.” Mills
grinned at me.
    “You’re right,” I
conceded, hanging my head woefully. I popped it back up and looked around the
room. “So, I guess we’d better go clean some windows. Looks like everyone else
already started this field day shit.”
    Mills leaned up to
rest on his elbows. “Looks like they did. I really hate that they refer to
cleaning as ‘field day.’ When I was a kid, ‘field day’ was the best day of the
school year.”
    I snorted. “We’re
only three weeks in, bro. Think positive.”
    “It’s not that
easy,” Mills said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and hopping down
with a thud. We walked over to the buckets and rags that some recruits had
pulled out for washing the windows. “Olivia is pretty good about staying
positive in her letters, but I know this sucks for her. I’ll make it up to her
with a big fat ring when we get out of this hellhole.”
    “Wait. Did you
just say that you’re proposing on boot leave?” I stuttered, absolutely stunned.
    Mills smiled like
a fool. “Not on boot leave, at graduation. My mom picked the ring up for me and
I’m gonna pay her back for
it. I’m going to ask Olivia if she wants to go see a judge over Christmas if I
get to come home, that way everything will be squared away before I get
stationed somewhere and she can come with me.”
    “Dude,” I drew out
the word. “We’re only eighteen.”
    “Yeah, so what?”
    I grunted. “You’re
fucking crazy, that’s all.”
    “Hey, man. We’ve
been together for five years now. Plus, I want her to be able to come with me
wherever I go. She can only do that if we’re