What If

Yours,

Arrow

The entire way home I had that song on repeat. I listened to the words closely. I knew them by heart, but knowing those words meant something to Arrow and he meant them for me changed the way the song affected me.





A week and a half later, I received a typed letter telling me what I could and couldn’t send to Arrow. Included was his address that I could begin mailing to whenever I wanted. I’d already written him a letter each day of his absence. I wrote his new address on each one of the ten envelopes, stamped them, and stuck them in the mailbox.

The first letter from Arrow came three weeks after he left, after five hundred plus times of listening to “Dear God” on constant repeat, and after a million different thoughts of him.

The envelope was thin and small; yet, it held the greatest gift I could ask for on my birthday: communication from Arrow. His name and address would look like chicken scratches to anyone else. The messy, small letters ran together instead of forming the numbers and words. I looked longingly at the curve of my name that leaked from the pen between his fingers. I’d gotten used to his mixture of print and cursive writing years ago through our note writing in high school.

I carefully tore the top of the envelope open and pulled the lined paper out. It was only a single page front and back. I read over the words fast, aching for this minute piece of Arrow. The second time I read it slower, taking in each word, devouring it.

In his written word, he explained how fast paced training was and how they didn’t have a lot of free time. This was the first instance they were allotted time to write. He thanked me for all my letters and expressed how important they were to him, how they helped him get through every day knowing that I was writing him, how they let him know I was thinking about him. He said right now they were memorizing basic commands and things of that nature. I soaked in each word, then traced the inscription at the top of the page. He had written the first few lines of “Dear God” in bold letters.

I folded it back up and placed everything into the wooden, vintage box with stickers of my favorite bands covering nearly the entire surface.

Weeks went by until I got another letter, but I continued my daily journaling to Arrow. I was still dating Killian, but we were taking things slow… like slow motion slow. He was accepting of my unwillingness to hop into bed with him after a couple months of dating. I wasn’t being a complete tease; we kissed and made out. Going further than that was not in our near future though. I couldn’t take back the fact that I lost my virginity to someone I didn’t love, but I’d be damned if the next time I had sex I made the same mistake. I wanted it to mean more this time around. I just didn’t love Killian yet, but maybe one day I would.

Arrow and Lacey were still in their semi-dating relationship. I knew because she was constantly writing on his social networking site about how much she missed him and how she loved getting his letters in the mail, etc. For the most part, Arrow and I didn’t write about other people. He brought up Lacey one time, and I didn’t respond to that specific part in the letter. I didn’t want to talk about her or know that he was thinking about her.

A little more than halfway through his thirteen weeks of boot camp, I got another letter. This one was a lot shorter, barely reaching half of the loose leafed paper. They’d just begun the second phase of boot camp, field training. He was exhausted. Every day he woke up with sore, tight muscles. When he had free time, he slept. All of them did. Because of that, his emails and letters were sparse.

Though I continued to write, I was running out of things to say to him. It wasn’t the same with him gone. Being with someone and having them as a permanent fixture in your life, always there when you need a hug, to talk, or scream don’t normally seem important but became huge, meaningful memories that seemed fictitious and a lifetime away.

There was a distance growing between us. Not only were we separated by miles, but the strings threading our hearts together were being pulled so tightly that I could feel the struggle and strain of the hold trying not to snap.

I pondered, not for the first time, if Arrow was growing tired of the energy it took to stay in contact with me. I couldn’t help but think that sooner rather than later the letters would stop all together.



I was watching a movie one afternoon at Killian’s apartment. He’d recently started renting the new place with his best friend Robby. My parents liked Killian; he was a put together kind of a guy, enjoyed sports, could talk to my dad about the stock market, and was a sophomore at the same college I’d be attending in just a few short weeks. My parents encouraged any time I spent with him.

It was a breath of fresh air not having to beg and plead to go out. With Arrow, there was always an argument, always a tone of disapproval and annoyance.

We were watching a superhero movie; it was pretty good besides the cheesy quotes. Killian and I were horizontal on the couch. I was tucked against him, and he was pushed against the back of the couch. During a serious part of the film, where the villain has the cliché choice to choose good over evil, my phone began going off. Struggling to unfold myself from Killian’s arms, I nearly missed it, but hit the answer button right before it went to voicemail, not knowing who was on the other end.

“Hello?” I asked.

“Briar,” Arrow’s low voice sang through my cell.

“It’s you!” I jumped off the couch and flew through the front door and into the hallway.

He chuckled. “Well, depends who you are referring to with that pronoun. You could be referring to any number of people.”

“Well, the Marine’s didn’t change you too much. You’re still a smart ass,” I teased.

“Ha ha,” he said.

“I can’t believe I’m actually hearing your voice right now! You must’ve earned some brownie points or something.”

“Actually, we all get to call our friends and family today to fill them in on graduation. I was hoping you’d come,” he explained, hopeful.

“Of course I’ll come. When is it? Where? What time? Should I ride with your parents?” I asked in a hurried manner.

“You mean it? You’ll come?”

“Duh, but you have to give me more info.”

He rambled off the date, time and location and then said, “You probably don’t want to ride with my parents,” he began and then quickly stuttered out, “their car is going to be pretty full.”

“What? There’s only the two of them.”

“Uhm,” his voice took on a quiet tone, “Lacey’s riding with them.”

I tried to keep from gasping into the phone by covering my mouth with my left hand. I bit down hard on the insides of my cheeks.

“Oh.” That changes things. “I’ll look at a plane ticket.”

“Okay.’ He cleared his throat. “I haven’t gotten a letter from you in about a week.”

Immediate guilt flooded into my bones. I had stopped writing as often because his replies were getting smaller and smaller. Each one contained another lyric from “Dear God”. That was my favorite part, but even the way he wrote it wasn’t as confidently written. I felt dejected, a little lost, and really confused about what I was supposed to do.

“I’ve just been really busy,” I gave the first excuse that came to me.