High school was a lot harder than grade school. To me, anyway. Travis learned everything real fast. He was good at everything.
He still helped me with homework every day, especially math. I just didn't get it and I couldn't understand why I had to learn it. I would never use it.
But Travis, he was so smart he wanted to take extra classes. They wouldn't let him do that, but some of the teachers gave him books to read about things that interested him. He gobbled them up like hot biscuits.
We couldn't go to our secret place after school started. At least, I couldn't. There wasn't time before my pa got home. So I would spend my time at home reading books, easy books, not the serious kind Travis read. I had to hide them. My pa didn't approve of books. He said they gave people ideas they shouldn't have. I don't know about that. The only idea I got was that some kids had more interesting lives than I did. Some of them got to solve mysteries and go to parties. And have boyfriends. My pa would have had a fit if I had a boyfriend. He never said that, exactly, but I kind of knew. He made me wear skirts that were way longer than the other girls' and my blouses had to be buttoned right up to the neck. I never fit in with the other girls, but it didn't make no difference. Even if they liked me, they couldn't come to my house and I couldn't go to theirs.
Travis didn't care about my clothes, or my hair that my ma cut all ragged. I wished I could be pretty, so he would fall in love with me, like in the books I read, but I didn't have much to work with. Sometimes when I was at his house doing homework, I would unbutton my blouse a little and stick out my chest, and unbraid my hair so it fell down past my shoulders, but he never seemed to notice, and then I had to go to the bathroom and fix myself up again before I went home.
Travis made lots of friends at high school. He was smart and charming and good-looking. Everyone liked him. Especially the girls. They would stand real close to him and rub their chest against his arm, or flutter their eyelashes or flirt with him all kinds of ways. They all wanted to be his girlfriend. And he did date some of them, but no one was his girlfriend. So I could pretend that I was. I would pretend I was Cinderella, and one day he would kiss me and I would turn into a beautiful princess. I know, that's dumb. No one believes in fairy tales after they're eight years old.
Once when we doing homework and he was sitting so close to me and I could smell him, a nice clean male smell and I couldn't stand it any more. I turned to him, just a little turn 'cause he was so close, and said, "You can kiss me if you want." He looked surprised and then he kissed me on the cheek.
"Now get back to the problem," he said. I was so disappointed because he didn't kiss me on my mouth like I hoped, but it was the first time he kissed me at all, so I was a little bit happy about it.
YOU ARE READING
A Soldier's Heart
Narrativa generale"Travis was a soldier with heart. His love for his family, his country and his community is unquestioned. He never hesitated to put his life on the line for those he loved- and he loved many and deeply." So begins Travis Barrett's eulogy. A true her...
