At some point in our lives an unfortunate event unfolds and the only solace we can find is in sleep. When we wake up, there are a good thirty seconds of sheer ignorance; the feeling that today is going to be a good day until the weight of whatever is troubling us crashes through the roof of the grass hut our dreams have built. Every morning for the past week I have felt like this. I wake up and stare at the phone lines and trees outside, then remember he is gone. It's only basic training but he still gone, cut out of my life for at least the next five months and I find myself thinking about the boy all the time. Every inanimate object which has the potential to evoke a thought related to him does just that, and I am beginning to feel like a huge sap, always wishing I could lay next to him, smell him, breathe him, run my hands through his hair and down his arms. I figured that as soon as he left it would be easy for me to move on; after all, I told myself I would not get attached and there would be so many other boys in college to fill his place. No. I don't want any other boys. I want his smile, I want the scar beneath his eye where a stronger boy left his mark, I want his cold bedroom and his offensive remarks sprinkled with ruthless curse words. I want his unrefined charm and the jolt of life I feel when I am with him. Most of all, I just do not want his life to end. I don't want it to be over, I don't want to get a call from a friend saying he was shot in Iraq.

I am unsure of when I will see him next. His smoldering coal eyes might never burn into my blue ones again. I only hope that back in college another boy will captivate me with such ferocity as he and I will completely relinquish all the memories I am harboring. I know I won't. They'll always be there, the memories of the fling, the first real one I've ever experienced. I loved every minute of it. I did not question him, I only followed, and we were intense and foolish and passionate and our affair ended before it had a chance to turn sour. When he said the three words I could not tell if he was kidding or not. I warned him. Don't say it if you don't mean it, and he said again and I just accepted it for what it was, not what it would be in ten years. Now he is gone and everything stings like a wound that just can't form a scab. I know I'll get over him, I know he'll fade to the background underneath classes and parties and concerts and Spring Break but he was someone special and hopefully, just maybe, he thinks I am someone special too.