“What’s on your mind? The reenlistment thing?”
I think about it for a minute and decide to mostly go with that. “Everyone I know from high school is doing stuff with their lives,” I say.
“So are you, serving your country, making rank,” Dad points out.
“Yeah, but they have actual, like, lives, you know?” I decide to sit on the warm asphalt of the parking lot and Dad perches himself on a parking bumper near me. It’d be more comfortable to go out to the actual shore of the lake, or on the grass that slopes down to it, but I don’t care.
“Okay, here’s the thing. I don’t know if I want to reenlist or not, and it’s kind of complicated the reason why,” I tell him.
“Well, talk to me about it, and we’ll figure out if it’s as complicated as it looks from the inside,” Dad suggests.
“It’s about a girl,” I say, making a face.
Dad laughs. “It’s almost always about a girl at the end of the day, even if it doesn’t look like it,” he says.
“Anyway, so there’s this girl that I’m sort of… I guess I’m sort of into her. I’ve known her for a while now, and it’s only in the last… couple of weeks that I started seeing her differently, as someone I might want to date,” I explain.
I want to cover the fact that it’s Harper I’m thinking about as much as I can. I don’t even really know why I’m asking my dad for advice about Harper at all. Except for the fact that it’s only just occurred to me that there’s more to the situation than some fun fooling around.
“Have you been dating her or anything? Is that why you didn’t get a date for the party the other night?”
I shrug. “We’re talking, and we’ve done some stuff together, but there’s no real tie there,” I say. That’s as close as I can come to telling the truth without coming right out and saying it’s Harper.
“But you’re into her, more than just a fling, or a one-night stand,” Dad says.
I nod. “I mean, we haven’t really talked about what it is specifically, but I guess things aren’t… they’re not serious, but I have some feelings there.” It feels weird to talk to my Dad like this. We don’t really talk about feelings, even feelings towards girls.
“And this is mixing up in your mind about whether or not you should reenlist?” Dad’s confused by the connection, and I try to think of a way to explain it without telling him about Harper. I want to put that off as long as possible.
“She lives away from base. Like, really away from base. So it would be easier to keep seeing her, to see if there’s anything to it, if I don’t reenlist. But I don’t even know if there’s anything to it, so what if I get out and then find that it’s just some three-month thing?”
Dad looks down at his hands for a few moments and I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if it sounds as stupid to him as it does to me, wondering if I should leave the military for a woman.
“This is someone you’ve known a while, I take it. If it’s someone you’re starting to see, I couldn’t see this coming up as a reason not to reenlist,” Dad says finally.
“Yeah, I’ve known her a really good, long while,” I tell him. “Years, in fact. Just, I didn’t really think of her that way before, but now that I do, it sort of feels weird to let it drop when it might be something.”
For a few minutes Dad’s quiet, and I don’t know what to think. Has he figured out that I’m talking about Harper? I sure as hell hope not. Sitting there in the parking lot at the lake, I realize I might have tipped my hand off to him on accident.
“I think you need to look at the whole situation if you want a good answer to this. Obviously, this is an important thing right now, but it’s not the only important thing,” Dad says.
“I know, making my decision based on some girl I might or might not be with this time next year seems stupid,” I agree.
“You should think about what the military has to offer you, and the fact that, being a vet, you’re actually a pretty good candidate for a lot of non-military jobs. And you need to decide how serious you are about this girl,” Dad tells me.
“Right,” I say, nodding. I know it’s going to take me a while to mull over what he’s saying, but for the time being I’m just glad for advice of any kind. I can’t tell whether or not Dad knows it’s Harper. That bit about me knowing her for a while might be a hint, but I want to hear what he has to say, think about it, and figure it out from there.