Girl of Mine by Taylor Dean

face as if he were exhausted. “No. Not at all. Don’t ever think that.”
    “Then, why?”
    “I just can’t. That’s all.”
    “You just can’t?” Jill repeated. So many questions wandered through her mind, yet she couldn’t put voice to any of them. Her legs felt numb, her chest tingled, and she wondered if she was going to faint. “You just can’t?” she said again. What kind of an answer was that? “But . . . I love you.”
    Luke looked like she felt. His face was pale and his eyes . . . they looked dead, as if they’d been shuttered and no one was allowed to see into the windows of his soul. He didn’t say he loved her back and the omission was duly noted.
    “Here’s the thing. My unit has been deployed, Jill. To Iraq. I leave in the morning. I only found out three days ago. I’ll be gone for a year or more and I think it’s best if we call off the wedding.”
    Stunned, Jill had no words, no response. Just a few carefully worded sentences and her life was suddenly upside down. “You’ve known for three days?” All at once, three days seemed like an eternity. Why hadn’t he told her sooner? Why hadn’t he turned to her for comfort while facing an uncertain future?
    “Yeah. I didn’t know how to tell you. Bad news is bad news no matter how you try to sugarcoat it.”
    Iraq? Luke is going off to war. What if he never returns? She’d face that overwhelming issue later. For now the matter at hand was their relationship.
    Lots of couples married quickly when one of them had to leave for military duty. That didn’t appear to be one of their options, however. It was too late. And clearly it hadn’t been what Luke wanted or he would’ve married her by now. Ouch, that thought hurt. They could’ve spent the last few days in married bliss. Didn’t he want her? Jill blurted out the next thing that came to mind. “It doesn’t matter. This changes nothing. I love you. We’ll just postpone everything. I’ll wait for you.” He will return. I know he will. Jill wiped away the tears that drizzled down her face.
    He shook his head in the negative. “No.” His tone seemed unyielding.
    She stilled. “Excuse me?”
    Luke pulled her up and stood so close she could feel his sweet breath on her face. “Don’t wait for me, Jill. I want you to go on with your life. I don’t want you to put everything on hold for me. It isn’t fair to you and I won’t ask you to do it.” His voice had turned to a harsh whisper, but his expression seemed . . . blank.
    “Stop it, Luke. Of course I’m going to wait for you. How could you even think differently?”
    “No,” he said firmly. “I’m not asking for promises between us. A year is a long time. What if it’s longer than that? We can’t predict if you’ll feel the same when I return.”
    By that, she wondered if he meant he couldn’t predict how he would feel when he returned. “Of course I’ll feel the same. What are you talking about? Why don’t you want me to wait for y-you?”
    Jill stared deeply into his eyes, eyes that held no light, no glimmer of hope. He was giving up on them, on a future between them. He’d already pulled away from her emotionally; she could feel it and sense it. “Why are you doing this?” she whispered.
    He swallowed hard. “I have to.”
    “No, you don’t. You don’t have to lose me.”
    “A year is a long time,” he repeated, as if that explained everything. “Who knows how long I’ll really be gone. I’ve thought this through. It’s the right thing to do.”
    Jill couldn’t process everything fast enough. Her heart raced ahead, but her mind thumped behind. “Please, don’t do this. Don’t write me off.”
    “It’s for the best. I don’t want to leave you in limbo.”
    “Luke, I don’t understand . . .” He was being deliberately vague and it wasn’t like him. How could he shut her out like this?
    “I need to go. I have an early morning and a long day ahead. No reason to drag this out.