Never Let You Go (a modern fairytale) (39 page)

We can’t talk at any time for any reason, and damn, it makes me mad when some of the guys talk and then we all have to drop and pay for it. One guy ran off—just left in the middle of the night—because he couldn’t hack it.

I dream about graduation.

I dream about November.

I dream about you, angel.

Keep your fingers over the letters.

And send me a story.

IMYLCILYF

Your,

Holden

***

September 6

Dear Holden,

I GOT YOUR LETTERS TODAY! All of them! All thirteen!

I loved reading about your plane trip and your first day. I even loved the letters that only said “IMYLCILYF” because it meant you were thinking about me.

Boot camp sounds really hard, but I’m so proud of you, Holden—every minute of every day. On Saturday I was at the post office, and a Marine walked in. He was in his full dress uniform (probably for the Labor Day festivities), and all I could think was how handsome Holden will be in his. When I think of us scratching in the dirt at Caleb Foster’s farm, I could just die of pride. We didn’t just survive, Holden. We didn’t just survive. (I learned that in my support group. Some kids survive foster care, some thrive and go on to live meaningful lives. We didn’t just survive foster care—we also survived Foster, and now we’re going to thrive.)

Speaking of Foster, something incredibly weird happened yesterday, and I can’t stop thinking about it. A woman met Professor Foster after class, and he hugged her to him and called her Ruth. I swear to God he did, and I’m not just imagining it. I asked the TA who was sitting next to me who the woman was, and she told me it was Prof. Foster’s wife. Now, yes, of course, it occurs to me that Foster was this Ruth’s married name (and her childhood name was probably Ruth Smith or something), but it still threw me for a loop. Just in case you’re wondering, Professor Foster’s name is Bill. Which means I’m obsessing about nothing.

I’m studying a book called The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, and it’s hard reading. I have to constantly try to figure out what it means. I read a line last night: “Alas, alas, that ever love was sin!” and I started thinking about Seth and Ruth, and you and me, and how they loved each other and we loved each other, and Caleb Foster was so sure we were all sinning. And we weren’t, and they weren’t, and the only one sinning was him. If I ever met the real Seth and Ruth, I feel like I’d understand them and they’d understand us. It’s crazy because they died in that barn fire so long ago, but sometimes I dream that they didn’t.

Do you still dream of Foster’s farm? When you do, does it frighten you? Since I found you again, my bad dreams have mostly gone away, Holden. Mostly, I dream of you. Of your arms around me and your angel pressed to my chest and your heart beating against mine.

Stay strong.

Keep your fingers over the letters.

I

Miss

You

Like

Crazy

I

Love

You

Forever

Gris

xo

October was going to be a bitch.

Although Holden was mostly used to boot camp now, like everyone else around him, he was homesick as hell—
home
being defined purely and simply as Griselda—and the Crucible was coming up at the end of the month. He wasn’t scared of the Crucible—the fifty-four-hour grueling exercise meant to break, build, and teach—but it represented the pinnacle of boot camp, with graduation following a few weeks later.

After graduation and his ten-day leave, he’d have another three weeks of training at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina before heading to Fort Sill in Oklahoma for fire support man training. After a month at Sill, he’d head to California for another month of EWTGPAC training, followed by his assignment to a Permanent Duty Station. And because he had opted for Artillery, there was a ninety percent chance he’d be assigned to Twentynine Palms or Camp Pendleton, both in California.

California.

Not Georgetown, where Griselda had built a life for herself, complete with a place to live, friends, a job, and, most important, college, but
California
, all the damn way across the country.

He hadn’t shared with her yet that his life would almost certainly be taking him to the West Coast, because she was doing so well. She’d finally started sending him stories again, and she loved college. She was helping mentor some of the girls sent to Nannies on Ninth and still attended the foster care survivors’ support group with Maya. He could tell from her letters that she was getting stronger and more confident, believing more in herself and in them as a couple. He was desperate not to upset that progress.

But on the flip side, he didn’t want to wait anymore for them to be together, and his ten days of leave was the only free time he’d have until he was assigned to his PDS, which meant that if he wanted to solidify their relationship—and he did, more than anything—he needed to do it when he saw her in November.

In other words, he was planning to propose. And if she said yes, he wanted to leave for the School of Infantry a married man and meet Gris at his PDS in March, not as his girlfriend, but as his wife.

He knew what this meant, what he was asking of her, and it troubled him. He was asking her to make a decision over the course of ten days that would affect the rest of her life, and to commit her life to him. He was asking her to uproot her whole life and move to California. He was asking her to leave her home, her friends, her job, and her studies, and choose a life with him instead.

Not that she couldn’t enroll in college in California. She could. She
would,
if Holden had anything to say about it, and he would support her in finding a job, if that’s what she wanted. And heck, the Marines would give them housing and all the other benefits that came with life on base.

But would she choose him?

Would she give up everything she knew and choose him?

He didn’t know. He didn’t know if she was strong enough to leave her life behind when all she got in return was him. Lately it kept him up nights, but he didn’t see another way. He could take leave in the spring or over the summer if he applied for it and hadn’t yet been deployed for his first six-month trip to the Sandbox, aka the Middle East. But if he was honest—and yeah, a little selfish—he wanted her with him as soon as possible. He wanted her to start this whole new adventure with him. He wanted her there, wherever he was stationed, every night when he got back from training, and in the inside loop with other military wives while he was away. He’d lived half his life
without
her. He wanted to live the rest of his life
with
her.

“Hey, Postal,” said one of his bunkmates, Tex, as Holden walked back into their barracks on Sunday afternoon, “sending another fucking letter to your girl?”

Because of the volume of letters he both wrote and received (and probably also because of his fierce, crazy-eyed fighting skills when he was “in the zone”), his drill instructor had started calling him Private Postal, and the nickname stuck. He didn’t mind. It was sort of perfect, actually, because it constantly reminded him of his commitment to Gris and their future together.

“No,” said Holden, “I was sending it to your mom because I saw her checking out my ass when she dropped you off.”

“Oooo, burn,” said his friend Graham, setting the iron on the ironing board and offering Holden a high five as he walked by.

“You’re a wiseass, Croft.”

“Team Week’s coming up,” tossed Holden over his shoulder in Tex’s direction. “Heard they want you on laundry, grunt.”

And of course Tex walked right into it. “Why’s that?”

“They heard you’re real good at getting skid marks out of your tighty-whities.”

“Fuck you, Croft,” said Tex, giving Holden the finger before heading out of the barracks in a huff.

“He’s gonna clock you one of these days,” said Graham, carefully folding his ironed pants.

“D-don’t like it when he makes comments about my girl,” said Holden, lying down on the bottom bunk and looking up at the picture of Griselda sandwiched between the bars of the metal bunk frame. “Screw him.”

“You talk to her about it all yet? Getting married? Moving out to Cali?”

Graham, who was planning to marry his high school girlfriend, Claire, once he was assigned to his first PDS, was also headed into the artillery, though he’d opted to be a cannon crewman instead. Chances were decent they’d be stationed together, or at least close by.

Holden shook his head. “Not yet.”

“Claire could be a friend to her to her,” said Graham, leaning on Holden’s bunk. “She’s from Indiana and doesn’t know a soul in California. They’re kind of in the same boat. I mean, if Griselda says yes. They’d both be picking up stakes and heading west to marry a Marine.”

Holden nodded. “Yeah. I’ll . . . I’ll let you know after I talk to her. Hey, I appreciate it, man.”

He watched as Graham turned away, heading to his bunk, no doubt to write Claire another letter or study for their final written exam, coming up in a few weeks.

Holden stared up at Griselda’s bright blue eyes, his heart clenching as he wondered,
Will you say yes, sweet girl? Will you say yes to me?

***

Griselda loved college.

She loved it so much more than she’d imagined she would. She loved the assigned reading, challenging though it was, and the exchange of ideas, the new ways of thinking. Though her British and American lit classes were, far and away, her favorites, she also appreciated the solid knowledge she was getting in her Critical Writing and Structure of English classes too. Though she had to admit, there was something about Professor Foster that still bothered her.

He didn’t look especially familiar.

His name wasn’t Seth.

And yet occasionally, very occasionally, she picked up a slight twang in Professor Foster’s cultured voice. It was so slight as to be almost imagined, but it was the way he said
your
like
yer
once or twice, and she was sure she’d heard him say
agin
rather than
again
at least once. The slight accent had pinged in her brain, and both times she’d had to calm her heart and convince herself that the name Foster was screwing with her head, and nothing else.

Lost in her thoughts about Professor Foster, she didn’t hear the door to her room open, but suddenly Prudence’s wide smile was staring at her from the foot of her bed.

“Pru!” exclaimed Griselda. “You scared me!”

“Just got home from school. Mama’s making me a snack.”

Griselda sat up, pushed her books and notebook aside, and patted the bed. “How was school today?”

Prudence sat down and shrugged, and the collar of her crisp, white long-sleeved dress shirt grazed her ears. “Okay, I guess.”

“Not letting Sybil Lewis get under your skin, right?”

Sybil was the difficult child of a well-known congressman, and Prudence’s key rival at the expensive private school she attended.

“Nope. But it was hard not to laugh when she felled down and skinned her knee at recess.”

“I hope you managed not to,” said Griselda.

Prudence shrugged. “Will you tell me another story after my snack?”

“Sorry, baby,” Griselda said. “I got an extension on this paper for my class and need to drop it off at my professor’s office by five.

“What’s a professor?”

“A teacher.”

“Like Mrs. Simmons?”

“Sort of. Go have a snack. If I’m back in time, I’ll come tell you a story before bed, okay?”

“Okay!” Prudence ran from the room, closing the French doors behind her.

Griselda rolled onto her back, glancing at the framed picture on her bedside table: Holden in his uniform, his handsome face grim. She smiled as she reached for the photo and pressed her lips to the glass before rolling onto her stomach and staring at him.

“I miss you like crazy,” she whispered, tracing his lips. “I love you forever.”

She kept waiting for Holden to talk to her about what came next for them, but she didn’t want to distract him from boot camp, or put pressure on him to build a future with her when Gemma hadn’t had the baby yet. He hadn’t even been stationed yet. He couldn’t very well invite her to go somewhere if he didn’t know where he was going.

Sometimes her doubts encroached—she no longer wondered if he’d leave her for Gemma, but maybe he’d decide that his life in the Marines was more exciting for one, and choose not to be tied down so soon. For her part, all she wanted was to be tied to him. For life. Forever. Even if it meant leaving Georgetown, the McClellans, and Maya behind. Even if it meant leaving college behind. Even if it meant that all she got in return was a life with Holden because truly that’s all she’d ever really wanted.

She kissed his face again, replacing the frame and picking up the paper she’d been proofreading, when Prudence came down to visit. She checked her watch. It was four o’clock. She’d have just enough time to get to Professor Foster’s office if she left now.

Pulling on her jacket, she slipped the paper in a manila envelope, picked up her keys, and headed out the door.

***

Forty-five minutes later, Griselda walked up the steps of the Arts and Sciences building, following a middle-aged woman into the building.

On the bus ride over, she’d opened and read Holden’s latest letter.

October 10

Dear Gris,

I miss you. I miss you so bad it feels like we’ve been apart for years, not months. I know you want to come to graduation, and I love you for it, angel, but don’t spend the money or miss your classes. I’ll leave for D.C. first thing after the ceremony and text you when I’m on the way. Not that I don’t like Sabrina, Roy, and Pru, but I’m kind of relieved that they’ll be in Rhode Island for Thanksgiving. Call me a selfish asshole, but I love the thought of having you all to myself. Get a lot of sleep now, Gris. I promise we won’t be getting much once I’m home.

Can you believe that the Crucible is in three weeks? I admit it, I’m a little nervous. From what I can gather, this is the worst part of boot camp, and some Marines don’t even make it. It takes place over three days and includes forty-five miles of marching, combat assault courses, and warrior exercises. Almost no sleep. We’ve got to work together. We’ve got to be a team. Pray that I don’t break any bones, because even if I do, I’ll keep going, but damn, it would hurt. Sort of glad for all those fights I had now. Never quit one, even when I was hurting like hell. I know I can make it through this. I’ll be thinking of you, angel. I know, in a weird way, you’ll be with me.

I loved your latest story. Sounds like the Sun King and Lady Starlight are going to get their happily-ever-after pretty soon. What about us, Gris? Think we’ll get ours? All I want out of life is you beside me. Is that what you want too?

Write to me soon, angel. Your letters keep me going.

IMYLCILYF

Holden

She had reread the letter three times on the bus, touching the words with her fingertips. Her breath quickened when she read the part about not getting any sleep, and her eyes brimmed when she read about him wanting her beside him for the rest of his life.

But why hadn’t they come up with a solid plan for the future yet? He couldn’t possibly doubt her feelings for him, and she didn’t doubt his for her. Their time apart had strengthened their bond and, for Griselda, built her trust in a future with Holden. She trusted that their feelings were strong and true, but action was required to make life changes happen, and neither of them had initiated that particular conversation. She took a deep breath as she walked behind the woman who’d preceded her into the building, and told herself to be patient. He’d be home in five weeks. They’d have time to talk about everything then.

The woman in front of her stopped at Professor Foster’s office and turned the doorknob. Finding it locked, she knocked lightly, then turned to Griselda. It was Ruth, the professor’s wife, whom Griselda had seen after class once or twice.