A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. I appreciate them!
Disclaimer: I own nothing that Ann Martin created.
Chapter 6
Dear Dawn,
Hey hun. I had some free time and I wanted to drop you a line. I know you didn't want to talk to me while we are both away, but I had to write you. M.A. gave me your addie.
I'm sorry about what happened. Naturally, we have the same situations here. C'est la vie, huh? I've been pretty busy here, same stuff over and over.
I have been thinking of you a lot lately. It seems all my free time is devoted to thoughts of you and what happened to us. We were so good together, Dawn. I miss you.
Remember when we first met in SHS? Poor Stacey, thinking I was hitting on her. How is she anyway? Remember when we did the MS Walk in Manhattan and the walk over the Brooklyn Bridge? I loved volunteering with you and if I could do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
Except our break up. I know we haven't really talked in a few years. I know how much it hurt and I know it was my fault. Again I'm sorry. I want to prove to you how much better I can be, how much more I love you everyday.
I want very much to see you after this nightmare is over. I've decided not to re-enlist, I know your time is coming up to make this decision as well, and I hope you chose what your heart tells you. My brother-in-law has promised me a steady job, and the same can be done for you, if you so choose.
Good-bye for now, my beach babe.
Yours, Ryder"Yours?" Who is he kidding, he will never be mine. I don't even know if I want to be with him again. How could Mary Ann give him my address? How did he get her number in the first place? What nerve, writing me after so long of silence. He made his feelings quite clear that night.
I guess I should explain. Ryder is the man everyone thought I would marry. Let me start from the beginning…
I spent high school in Stoneybrook after I moved back to Cali. I didn't want to divide up the year and go coast to coast anymore. I wanted to graduate with my stepsister who needed me after the fire. So I spent summers and vacations in Cali and the school years in SHS. That was how I met Ryder.
I remember the first day we met….
It was in freshman year, second semester. I went to my first class of the day, Physical Science. Yes, Stacey was in the class with me. So were Pete Black, Logan, Erica Blumberg and a few other people I remembered from SMS.
Stacey and I took a lab table together. Pete Black and a boy I didn't recognize were sitting with him. I had heard about this boy through rumors and gossip. He had moved here from a desert (which turned out to be Arizona), he was single and into blondes, was very smart, and came from a big family (he's actually an only child), and was incredibly cute. His name was Ryder Hammer. (Actually Banner.)
This last rumor was true. He was cute. He had blue eyes and sandy hair that he spiked up. He was wearing a long sleeved black T-shirt and black cargo pants with black sneakers. Stacey couldn't keep her eyes off him. (Neither could I.)
She said to me, "Watch this Dawn. He'll be my boyfriend before third period." She whipped out her hand mirror and checked her hair (straight now, she grew tired of perms) and her make-up. Then she giggled loudly to me, as if I had told her a joke. I saw Ryder glance at us and smile a little.
"Perfect," Stace muttered to me. "Now watch."
She slyly knocked her pencil of the side of her desk while she continued to giggle. Me, I was red with embarrassment, glad that the teacher hadn't come in yet.
Then Ryder smiled again. He glanced at the pencil, then at the other kids in the classroom, who, of course, where all staring at us. He picked up the pencil, examined the point. He looked at Pete and held out his hand. Pete handed him a sharpener and he began sharpening the pencil. I couldn't believe this guy. Stacey just kept trying to look anywhere but at him. He then spoke.
"Excuse, me cutie. You dropped your pencil." He handed it to Stace, who winked at me.
"Anyway I can thank you for picking it up for me?"
"Yeah," he said, "you can write down something with that pretty pencil." He winked at her.
"What?" she started to lean towards him. Pete and the other kids just kept watching these two. I was so busy brooding at how embarrassed I was that I almost missed what Ryder said to Stacey.
"Your gorgeous friend's number."
"What?" Stacey and I said together. Then Stacey looked at me, smiled, and…gave him my number!
Sure I was pist at her. But I figured "What the heck?"
Long story short, we stayed together all through high school. We were good together. He shared my feelings about the environment. He went to all my fundraisers with me to save the Earth and animals. He protested with me at school against selling carbonated liquids (soda) on school grounds. He crusaded with me against dissecting animals in lab. He rallied with me when in economics they wouldn't allow same gender marriages. He went with me to the airport and waited for me to come back. He respected my mom and Richard and my friends. We had our fights but still we always got back together in the end.
Damn, him. This is exactly what he wanted, me to remember our good times. But with the good comes the bad. Let me tell you about that.
Aside from our usual battles for animals and nature, he got me into volunteering for Awareness groups. Together, we did the MS Walk, Cancer Walks, Breast Cancer Walk, Lung Cancer Walk (Sunny flew in for that) and volunteered for CF (cystic fibrosis) and Juvenile Diabetes. We made many contacts, many of which joined us for our nature crusades.
Then Senior Year came. I already knew I was going to Berkeley with Ryder. We weren't too worried about the future. We knew we could always be back together. All was perfect.
Then in March, Ryder told me about a decision he had made. He was joining the Army. I immediately fell in love with the romantic idea of waiting for my soldier to come home. He told me he had to help his parents and that in the Reserves, he could still go to school. But he would be leaving me right after graduation.
I told him I loved him, that I would miss him. And later, as I told Mary Ann what he was doing, I began to think this through. In the Reserves, I could help people. I would get to travel to places I might never have a chance to see… but I would have to fire a gun, or worse, and hurt people.
I began to argue with myself. If I had to hurt people, it would be self-defense. I would be protecting myself. I could pay my own way through school so Dad could concentrate on Jeff's education. (He mentioned wanting to go to school for sports medicine.) Best of all, I'd be doing what Ryder was doing. I thought of all the contacts that I would make to help me in the future. I thought of coming home, in my uniform, to Ryder and he would be in his uniform.
I talked to mom. She was supportive but reminded me of the weapons and the physical and mental torture. Worth it, is what I had told her. I would be making a difference. When she realized how serious I was, she agreed it was okay.
Dad was a different story. He hung up on me, then called me back and told me about Vietnam and some of his friends. Then I mentioned that it was only the Reserves and the money for college. After he heard my reasons, he agreed. I could join if this is what I wanted to do.
I told all my friends. They were shocked, but proud. I told Ryder. I had never seen him so angry! He screamed at me, told me "NO YOU CAN'T GO! NO GIRLFRIEND OF MINE…." Then he got quiet. I didn't back down, didn't change my mind. He went to the recruiters with me. I would be trained in Oklahoma and then on to Virginia. I would go to college in Cali and report to a base there 1 weekend every month. And for summer break, on to Hawaii for more training. Every summer on a tropical island? I was so there.
The night before graduation, I met Ryder at our usual spot: the park. That's where he broke up with me. "Why?" I cried over and over. He said he didn't want to see me hurt. He couldn't handle so he felt it was best to be away from each other, give us space. I was devastated. And I was angry. So I worked hard and trained hard. We saw each other for awhile in college, but not like before. After 9/11/01, and we went to war, we lost touch. Last I heard, he was Airborne and now in Afghanistan. I guess he heard I was in Iraq with the 10th Mountain Division.
Now he wants to get back together?