Chapter Two

Almost three hours later, once she’d passed the Arlington city limits sign and taken the exit she needed, she pulled into a strip mall parking lot and called her parents’ house.

“Sarah!” Bethany exclaimed and burst into tears. “Sarah, where are you? What’s going on?”

“Mom, I just…,” Sarah took a breath to compose herself. “I had to get out of there. I had to.”

“Why? What happened?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Mom, I really don’t. Just… let’s just say Tim is not who I thought he was, and leave it at that, okay? Please?”

In the silence she could hear her mother sniffling, followed by, “If you want. But honey – where are you? We’re all worried sick!”

“Is he there right now?” Sarah asked, her bruised and battered heart in her throat.

“No. Tim and his folks left a while ago. I’m not sure what happened between you two, but he’s devastated, Sarah.”

“He’s the last person in the world who should have the nerve to be surprised by this,” she snarled before she could stop herself.

“Oh, honey. What did he do?”

“You can ask him that. Like I said, Mom, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Are you coming home?”

A long pause, then, “No, Mom, I’m not. I’ll tell you what I’m doing, but you can’t tell Tim. Promise me.”

She heard a click and then her father’s voice on the line too.

He must have picked up the phone in the study, she realized.

“Sarah. Are you okay?” he asked, and Sarah winced at the pain in his voice. “And where the hell are you?”

“I’m in Arlington, Dad. I am going to find a place to live and enroll at UTA. And you guys cannot tell Tim where I am, all right? Promise me you won’t tell him if he asks. Although I’m probably not even on his mind anymore.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Marty retorted. “Dead wrong. That young man is completely distraught, Sarah.”

Sarah’s brow wrinkled in confusion as she listened to her parents’ words.

Why would he even care? I know what I saw.

“It doesn’t matter,” she replied shakily, her heart breaking in two all over again. “He made his choice, and I’ve made mine. I’m just sorry I worried you both in the process.”

She gave them her new phone number and email address, then swore them both to secrecy. After another round of ‘I love you’ and a promise she would tell them her address once she had one, Sarah disconnected the call.

Next, she drove to the city’s library and signed in to one of the computers, then began her search for housing. She wrote down several choices, all within a three-block radius of the campus, then began making calls.

She hit gold with her fifth call. The complex had one unit available, and the woman’s voice over the telephone line was warm and soothing, reminding her of her beloved Grandma Peggy that she’d lost in March.

“I can show it to you today, if you’d like to come see it, dear,” the woman had said.

To which Sarah replied, “I can be there in twenty minutes.”

***

Once they had gotten off the call, Marty walked back into their kitchen.

“I think there’s been a huge misunderstanding,” he observed as he looked at Bethany. “It’s a shame, too. They’re great together.”

“Yes, they are,” Bethany agreed. “But they’re grown, and it’s between them, and she doesn’t want to talk about it, dear.”

“I know,” Sarah’s father sighed. “I just wish there was something we could do.”

“Me too, but there’s not,” his wife rejoined. “We made a promise not to share her location, and we need to keep it. And if they’re meant to be,” she continued as she moved into Marty’s arms, “then it will happen at some point, honey. That’s the best we can hope for.”

***

Across town from the Genard house, Tim sat on his parents’ couch in a stupor.

Sarah and I should be cutting our wedding cake and laughing and having our first dance as husband and wife right now, he realized, and a fresh wave of pain stabbed him straight in the heart. He raked his hands over his face and stood.

“I can’t do this,” he mumbled aloud to his mother and father. “I can’t just sit here and wonder what the hell went so wrong. I’m heading back to my unit.”

“Right now?” Paige asked.

Tim’s jaw set.

“Yes, Mom. I love you both very much, but right now there’s just too many ghosts in this town.”

He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

“I’m going to go change and pack my gear.”

His father watched him walk down the hallway, then rose and followed his son, stopping in Tim’s bedroom doorway.

“Did you ever tell Sarah you’re deploying to Afghanistan, son?” Patrick murmured.

“No, I didn’t.”

Tim’s shoulders sagged.

“She knew it was a possibility, but not that we’ve been issued travel orders. I was going to tell her tonight.”

***

“How soon did you need the place, dear?” Mrs. Richardson asked sweetly as they toured the two-bedroom second-floor unit.

“As soon as possible, although it might take a bit to find some furniture,” Sarah told her honestly. “Everything I own is in my SUV.”

“I think I can help with that,” the old woman beamed. “My grandson works in a furniture store. He’s about your age, too, and he’s handsome. And single,” she added with a sly grin.

“I appreciate that, Mrs. Richardson, but I’m only looking for furniture. I, um… well, I just got out of a relationship, so…” Sarah faltered as her face filled with hurt.

“Now, now, dear, no worries,” came the response along with an affectionate pat on Sarah’s hand. “And please, call me Jodie. I didn’t mean to upset you, Sarah.”

“You didn’t. It’s just a very recent breakup.”

Like the ‘not-even-forty-eight-hours-old’ kind of recent, Sarah concluded in her head.

They returned to the office and filled out the lease paperwork, and Jodie tilted her head when Sarah mentioned she was enrolling in UTA.

“Really? That’s delightful. What are you majoring in?”

“Accounting,” Sarah replied.

Jodie regarded her a moment longer, then leaned forward and whispered, “Maybe we can make a deal.”

“What kind of deal?” Sarah asked, amused at the twinkle in the complex manager’s eye.

“Well, I’m not getting any younger, my eyesight’s not what it used to be, and I’m supposed to be putting all of my bookkeeping onto the computer. But I’m just not comfortable using the darn thing. So, let’s trade. If you will work here part-time and help me out with the books, I’ll put you in the two-bedroom unit at the one-bedroom rate, and I can deduct what you work from the rent. How does that sound?”

“Jodie,” Sarah smiled, “you have a deal.”

“Excellent!” the grandmother clapped her hands with glee. “Now, let’s get this paperwork done, and then I can reach out to Larry, and we can get you some furniture.”

That night Sarah, wearing one of Tim’s oversized t-shirts and wrapped up in her favorite blanket, leaned back in the overstuffed recliner she had picked up on clearance and cried herself to sleep in her new apartment.

***

“You take damn good care of yourself, you hear me, son?” Patrick intoned.

“Yes, sir,” Tim answered as they hugged.

“Come back safe to us,” his mother said as she threw her arms around him.

He returned Paige’s embrace before he threw his duffel bag into the truck and climbed behind the wheel, watching his parents move back to the porch to wave goodbye.

God, I miss you, Sarah, he thought as he glanced over at the empty passenger seat. You should be here with me.

He pushed the love of his life from his mind, waved to his parents, and pulled out of the driveway to begin the eight-hour drive back to Fort Hood.

His teammate, Dack Abrams, was still awake when Tim arrived back at the barracks at one-thirty a.m. They had met and bonded during boot camp and were almost inseparable.

“Dude! I didn’t expect you back for a couple of days. You an old married man now, or what?”

Tim clenched his jaw but only said, “No.”

“What happened, bro? You get cold feet?” Dack teased.

“I don’t want to talk about this,” came the clipped response.

“Tim… you all right?” Dack asked, all traces of humor gone now.

“No,” Tim admitted, “but maybe someday I will be.”

“You know I got your back, right? You can talk to me anytime you need to,” Dack said, clapping his friend on the shoulder.

“I know it, Dack. Not right now though, okay?”

Looks like his entire world has come crashing down, Dack realized. But if he doesn’t want to talk about it there’s not much I can do to help.

And his friend watched him thoughtfully as Tim walked away to stow his gear.

***

By the end of the week the two men, along with the rest of their platoon, had departed for the Middle East. Leaving Texas, they had flown to Germany before boarding Army transport planes to go take their turns wading through hell.

As their C-130 left the runway to head into Afghanistan, Tim held his breath and said a prayer, not just that he would make it back safely, but that he would reconnect with Sarah someday.