Our Little Love Story *NOW PUBLISHED ON AMAZON KINDLE!!*

chapter thirty two

It was now mid-April. Jared had been gone for three months overseas to Germany for his year long deployment. We’d had an incredible Christmas break together, but every moment that we were together was incredible. 

When he left shortly after the New Year, it was the hardest good bye of all. I’m sure it was because we knew that we wouldn’t be seeing each other for at least an entire year. I felt myself slipping into a slight depression over this deployment. Not only was it his first of what I was sure was going to be several, it was a long stay. 

Jared had called me a couple of days after he had landed in Germany. The connection was distant and fuzzy, and it was hard to understand what he was saying. The first half of his deployment he would be on land, and the second half he would be on a ship of some sort. Due to military regulations, he couldn’t go into more detail than that. I was thankful for at least knowing that much about what he was doing.

“I won’t be able to call everyday,” he had said, his voice coming through in crackles. 

“Oh,” I had replied, unable to hide my disappointment.

“We’re going to be pretty busy over here. I can write and email you as much as I can. The phone is hard to get to. There are a lot of other people over here, and everyone wants to call home, as you could imagine. I’m sorry, but I thought I’d let you know now so you wouldn’t worry,” he responded. I’d had the earpiece of my phone pressed tightly to my ear, trying to hear his voice better through the crackling line. 

“Jared, this connection is terrible. Don’t they have better phone service or whatever over there?” I asked, slightly irritated.

“No, babe. Sorry,” came his voice again, although it sounded like “Nn..b..b..s..ry.”

Letting out a frustrated sigh, I answered, “Well, I’ll take what I can get, I guess.”

“Hey, I got to go. I’ll send you an email later, okay?” Jared said suddenly.

“Okay, love you,” I replied. I’m not sure if he had heard me or not, because the line went dead. Frustrated, hurt, and angry, I threw my phone onto my bed. “Stupid Marines!” I exclaimed aloud, flopping down on my bed, covering my face with my hands. Tears full of mixed emotions flowed freely, and I made no attempt to stop them. This was harder than I thought that it was going to be.

****

A few hours later, I was sitting at my desk working on an English paper that was due in a few days for class. The toolbar at the top of my browser dinged and flashed, signaling that I had a new email. Minimizing my paper, I went to my email account and logged in. I had two new messages. One of them was junk mail, and the other from Jared.

I quickly moved the cursor over the top of his email and clicked to open it.