Prologue

What does it mean to truly love another?

There was a time in my life when I thought I knew the answer: It meant that I'd care for Bulma more deeply than I cared for myself and that we'd spend the rest of our lives together. It wouldn't have taken much. She once told me that the key to happiness was achievable dreams, and hers were nothing out of the ordinary. Marriage, family... the basics. It meant I'd have a steady job, the house with the white picket fence,ans a minivan or SUV big enough to haul our kids to soccer practice or piano recitals. Two or three kids, she was never clear on that, but my hunch is that when the time came,she would have suggested that me let nature take its course and allow god to make the decision. She was like that religious, I mean and I suppose that was part of the reason I fell for her. But no matter what was going on in our lives, I could imagine lying beside her in bed at the end of the day, holding her while we talked and laughed, lost in each others arms. It doesn't sound so far-fetched, right? That's what I thought,too. And while part of me still wants to believe it's possible, I know it's not going to happen. When I leave here again, I'll never come back.

For now,though, I'll sit on this North Carolina hillside overlooking her ranch and wait for her to appear. She won't be ale to see me, of course. In the army, you learn to blend into your surroundings, and I learned well, because I had no desire to die in some backward foreign dump in the middle of the Iraqi desert. Bulma will never know I've been here today.

Part or me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable, but her story and mine are different now. It wasn't easy for me to accept this simple truth, Because there was a time when our stories were the same, but that was six years and two lifetimes ago. And I've been burdened by questions I've asked myself a thousand times since the last time we were together. Why did i do it? And would i do it again? It was I, you see, who ended it.

When I first met Bulma Brief, I could never have predicted my life would turn out the way it has. That's the things that makes my current life so strange. I fell in love with her when we were together, then fell deeper in love with her in the years we were apart. I reflect on these things, and as always, I find myself remembering how it began, for now these memories are all I have left.

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