Bound for Glory - Year 1

Week 20//Part 2 - Bruises of the Heart

Song of the chapter on side :) >>>>>>>

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                                                                     July 14th, 2011

                                    “The Dead Memories in My Heart Are Still Living On”

*Kathryn's POV*

“Dude, are you SURE you know where we're going?” I asked my fiancé, Marshall Holliday, as we drove in his Jeep to the station where he'd deploy for Iraq.

He proposed to me about four months ago on my 19th birthday after we'd been dating for a year. But only a week ago he announced that he enlisted in the Army. I was crushed, but I understood that he felt as though he had to do something. His dad died in the Army and he feels like there's some unfinished business he needs to take care of.

I'm going to miss his warm, comforting Australian accent, his muscular and hot body, his short yet flaccid sandy blonde hair, and the fact that he's the nicest and most caring person I've ever met. I met him a couple years ago at my friend's prom. Even though I ended up hooking up with someone else that night, Marshall ended up being the victor. But, it's not like he'll be leaving forever. Just a few months, maybe a year . . . then we'll get married and start a family. He even suggested that we move to somewhere exotic like Argentina or the Bahamas or Cuba. He's always been the ambitious one in our little relationship. Well, in the entire city of Grand Rapids, rather. Right now, we were driving to Indianapolis, where he'd be deploying. He was wearing the khaki uniform he'd be wearing nearly every day for a long time, and he was wearing the real diamond and real opal cross necklace his great-grandmother gave to him before she died. He cherished it and I always admired how much he honored her by wearing it every day.

The Hollidays are a very close knit family and always have been. His parents, Penny and Eric, have been married for twenty-two years. He has a brother, Deuce, that's two years younger than him; he has a sister, Emily, that's four years younger than him. He's insisted on me becoming a bigger part of the family, so I went to Sydney with him a couple months ago to announce our engagement to his family with him. Deuce and Emily always enjoyed to make fun of us for being together. He's twenty-one and I'm nineteen; it's a little weird for a member of the Holliday family to be involved—or as Penny would say, “Sexually active”—with someone that's more than a year younger than them.

Marshall is quite possibly the most creative person I've ever met. We'd always spend our days in our crappy little apartment in downtown Grand Rapids, listening to cheesy rock music and acting like teenagers. To be fair, technically I AM a teenager, but I've never really felt like one. And besides, when your 21 year-old boyfriend/fiancé acts like a teenager all the time by shoplifting from Quick Stops and convenience stores and dancing like a dork while listening to Paramore, it's only appropriate to do the same. Isn't it?

“Yes, I already told you!” he said back, kind of laughing. “I know exactly where we're going.”

I glared over at him and propped one of my sandal-clad feet on the dashboard. “You DO know that Indiana is south of Grand Rapids, right?” I joked. He quickly shot me a glare then turned his eyes back on the road.

“Yes,” he said with fake thanks. “I very well know that we're not going to Indianapolis, Canada!”

I just laughed and clapped a bit. “Hey! There it is!” I pointed to the station where a bunch of people were standing around.