So it was that now, by my 18th birthday, I have been dating Grim for 3 years, had an affair with his brother, who I’ll call Ruby, and have been instantly placed on guard towards his boss, Gypsy. (Because this is apparently how people “adult” in the 21st century). So reasonably, I would think that my National Guard Army Duty for October 2006 would be a quiet relief.
At first, it was actually kind of nice. See, I had injured my feet while in Army Training, and had orders to return to training week 8 out of 9 after school got out for my senior year. In the meantime, I was helping to prepare the new enlistees for training before they got shipped out. I was told to refer to them as “RSP’s”. This drill, however, happened to be in my hometown’s infantry unit (which is now a Calvary unit) as my company in Marianna decided to merge with the drill weekend for Panama City. So there I was, a hormonal mess, trying to find solace in weapons and hand-to-hand training, wanting to let off some steam…only to be stuck at a desk doing paperwork after being measured and told that I’m 1 lb overweight and did not meet Army standards for height and weight. So in between the mountains of paperwork I had to update that day, I would look up at the measure-line and try to follow whatever interesting conversation might be taking place, trying to spot my unit apart from the Infantrymen (because, honestly, everyone looked the same to me, this was a personal effort on my part) So, I filled out another 2-3 pages, and I don’t know what made me look up this time – I had heard no laughter, no joking, nothing to draw my attention towards the crowd – and I saw this one particular soldier just standing there, waiting to be measured. I knew he wasn’t from my unit – I’m sure I would have seen him before, especially if he lived nearby. I felt like he still looked familiar to me, like I recognized him, but I still couldn’t figure it out because I knew I had never laid eyes on him before (much to my dismay. He was gorgeous!).
So I sat there, trying to place where I’d seen him before, and I had no idea that I’d been staring (really, I need to work on this) and then he turned to me, saw me staring, gave a little half-smirk, and winked at me. I went back to my paperwork, and I’m almost certain my face was fully flushed with a deep red.
I literally don’t remember anything else from that drill weekend. Although I know my body endured some heavy training, I don’t think my mind much cared.
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