“I love you more, Brittan.” He always says that, every time I tell him I love him, he always says ‘I love you more’. It still gives me butterflies.
We spend the entire night making love until the sun comes up. I don’t want to close my eyes and welcome sleep. I’m holding on to the hope that maybe, if I don’t fall asleep, tomorrow won’t come.
After showering and having a quick breakfast, Cane grabbed his bags and loaded them into the trunk of my Chevy Cavalier. We drove to the airport in complete silence until I turned up the radio to drown out the thoughts buzzing around in my head.
Cane laced our fingers together, rubbing the top of my hand with his thumb. A small smile forms on my face, as tears run down my cheeks. I love it when he does that; he knows it helps me relax. Although I know deep down he’s a wreck right now too, he’s doing everything he can to be strong for me. He knows how bad I am with goodbyes.
I cried my eyes out when he moved across town to attend college two years ago. Now he’s leaving the state, and soon he’ll be deployed. It’s overwhelming; I miss him already, and he hasn’t even left yet.
Standing in the middle of the airport, it feels like I’m standing outside of my body looking down at myself; watching as everything plays out in front of me. Cane’s standing before me with a nervous smile as he gets ready to go through the security check. I try to lock this memory of him in my head, with his shaggy dirty blonde hair falling over his eyes. I’m going to miss running my fingers through it when he returns, and it’s all buzzed off.
He only has a few minutes before he will need to go through security and board a plane taking him to Georgia for basic training. My head is telling me these few weeks will go by fast, but my heart is yelling at me to beg him not to go.
Blocking out the world around us, I wrap my arms around his waist and press my face against his chest, taking in the smell of his body wash and cologne. I can’t stop the flow of tears that are now escaping my eyes, and I refuse to say goodbye. Instead, we decide to tell each other ‘I’ll see you later’.
“You make sure you call me every chance you get, it’s the only thing that’ll keep me from totally losing my mind.” I say as I finally work up the strength to speak. A voice comes over the loud speaker, informing everyone flying to Atlanta International that it’s time to board the plane.
“I will, I promise. It won’t be so bad; you’ll be too busy with school to miss me, and you have Roxie. These next ten weeks will fly by in no time.” Kissing me one more time, Cane releases me from his embrace and swings his bag over his shoulder.
Wiping away the tears from my cheeks with the back of my hands, I manage to form a tiny smile. “I hope you’re right, because I am going to miss the hell out of you until you come home.” I blow him a kiss as he turns to walk away.
As I stand in the middle of the airport trying to let the fact that he is really doing this sink in, someone bumps into me, knocking me out of my fog. Sliding my hands over my face, I let out a slow, shaky breath and made my way over to the giant wall of glass windows and stare out at the plane Cane just boarded.
A small part of me wishes that he would run off the plane, and tell me he changed his mind. Then we could walk out of here hand in hand, talking about how our year at college will be. But that never happens and I sadly watch the plane move down the runway, and it soon disappears in the afternoon sky.
July 4th 2004
It’s been almost a year since Cane joined the military. He’s only home for a few weeks before he deploys to Afghanistan. I’ve been a nervous wreck since he broke the news to me last week. Terrified does not come close to describing how I feel. I’ve been trying to distract myself with work, and spending every chance I get with Cane.
Since he’s been home, we’ve had almost no time for just the two of us. We’ve had to go to each of our parents’ house for dinner. Matt and Dalton have called almost every day to get together, either to go surfing or fishing. Roxie and Matt finally gave in to what they’ve been fighting since high school, and are finally together. So at least when they want to hang out with Cane and me, Roxie is there to keep me company.
We’ve spent the day out on the boat; it’s been in the nineties all week, and I couldn’t wait to get into the water. The boys took turns driving Matt’s speedboat and pulling us all on the inner tubes. After a few hours of tubing, we parked the boat for the boys’ to fish while Roxie and I read soap opera digest and gushed over Nick Newman.
At the end of the day, we pulled into the marina and walked down the boardwalk decide on a restaurant. Tonight is the annual fireworks show at the beach. We want to grab something to eat and then head down to the beach with our chairs to find a spot by the water to watch the display.