RobertaME

Lost Faith series

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Lost Faith Series
by RobertaME

Every Day is Your Last is a prequel to Lost Faith. They are written so that either book can be read first, but there are a few spoilers in Every Day is Your Last, so it's best that Lost Faith be read first.

I hope you enjoy them!
RobertaME

Epilogue

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Joss sighed as he worked on the commission painting. Knowing it needed to be delivered within two weeks, he wanted it done that day so the oils had time to dry. Smiling as he shook his head, he continued to add details to the dog's ears. Four years and a double degree and I'm using it to paint a rich woman's dead Airedale! he chuckled to himself.

Chapter 28 - Family is Who Loves You

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Joss was happier than he'd ever thought possible. In the days that followed Thanksgiving, he'd started staying over at Judy's house more and more often. While he cared for the Edwards family and knew they loved him for himself, he loved Judy far more than his own mother. Once she became a licensed foster home in mid-December, Judy took over care of Joss officially, moving him from one house to the other with Joyce and Hank's blessings.

Chapter 27 - You Can Never Go Home Again

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To give him a room of his own, Hank and Joyce Edwards worked every spare minute to convert their den into another bedroom. Previous foster children had shared a room either with Tracy if they were a girl or David if a boy, but the family quickly realized that Joss didn't really fit either and did their best to adapt.

Chapter 26 - The Truth Hurts

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CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Living with Joss turned out to be more difficult than the pastor and his wife had believed it could be. Even though he was a boy, they realized he might find it difficult to adjust to living as a boy given his physical development. Even as Daniel drove them home, Susan noticed one major problem.

Chapter 25 - "When in the Course of Human Events..."

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CAUTION - Referenced Attempted Suicide

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The following day Dr. Benson talked with Joss for another two hours after his IV and catheter were removed. Sure that he understood his patient, he needed to see how he handled other people. On the afternoon of the fourth day of his observation, the first guest he allowed to see Joss was his father.

Chapter 24 - Thoughts from the Graveyard

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CAUTION - Referenced Attempted Suicide

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Floating in a dream state, Joss wondered if this was what death was, an endless sea of nothingness for all eternity.

Chapter 23 - To Be or Not To Be

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CAUTION - Attempted Suicide
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content
CAUTION - Intense scenes involving a minor

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A month to the day after the accident, Josh went back to school. He walked into the building dressed in a black skirt, top, tights, and flats. He also carried the black backpack that Grace had used for the last three years, the same one he'd had before her. Judy let him keep it as a memento of their love, along with a few other things. He'd asked about the carving he'd given her for her sixteenth birthday, but Judy told him she'd been buried holding it, unwilling to make her daughter ever part with the gift she'd loved nearly as much as Josh himself.

Chapter 22 - This Too Shall Pass

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CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Josh was finally ready. Having spent most of the day getting his hair and nails done, a complete facial, and then almost two hours to get dressed, he looked at the final product. Trying to make himself like what he saw, he still hated the vision of young womanhood staring back at him from his closet mirror. Seventeen and hours away from his Junior Prom, he was irreparably and unmistakably a woman in all but the most basic of ways. No one would even believe you if you told them you were a boy. he ridiculed himself as he examined the beautiful woman in his mirror.

Chapter 21 - High School Memories

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Before the end of the month, Grace had her driver's license and the two spent their first evening out alone without Judy. It was a simple dinner at a fast food place and then a movie, but she and Josh enjoyed it just the same.

Chapter 20 - Another Birthday

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Judy spent the next month looking into any legal options for Josh. In the end all that came of it was that he could file a malpractice lawsuit against Dr. Williams, but not until after he turned eighteen. Until then only his parents could file one on his behalf.

Chapter 19 - Growing Up is Hard to Do

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Trapped in a one-car garage filling with smoke, Josh found it strange that he could breath just fine. It was then that he saw both Jennifer and Grace were there and choking on the deadly fumes as he watched helplessly. Suddenly, he noticed he had a respirator in his hand and looked at the two girls in turn. He knew that he could only save one of them at this point, as they were both so close to death that by the time he'd saved one, the other would be gone. Frozen in indecision, he stood there and watched as both succumbed to the smoke and fell lifeless to the floor as he screamed.

Chapter 18 - Right or Wrong

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CAUTION: Attempted Suicide
CAUTION: Referenced / Discussed Suicide
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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As the school year came to a close, Josh and Grace were getting closer to one another, but he continued to struggle with his feelings while still clinging to the memory of his love for Jennifer and all that she'd tried to do for him. No matter how many times he tried to look at it, he couldn't figure out what the right thing to do was.

Chapter 17 - Beware the Ides of March

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Turning in place and looking at himself in his closet mirror, Josh sighed at the utter futility of looking anything like a boy. He'd bought some boy's clothes in a department store; a pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a baseball cap. Even with his hair tucked up in the cap and his still-growing breasts strapped down with an ace bandage, the image he saw reflected in his mirror looked like a pre-teen girl wearing boy's clothes. Once he took off the cap and his hair spilled out, the vision was complete and he would even be hard-pressed to say they were boy clothes. On him, he felt they still looked girly.

Chapter 16 - The Hand of Fate

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CAUTION - Indirect Reference to Suicidal Thoughts
CAUTION - Intense scenes involving a minor
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Josh was 'sick' the next week, which wasn't far from the truth as he was lost in a near constant fugue state. Friday came and he was taken down to Dr. Biggs's office and got his first three-month shot of puberty blockers. The next Monday, he went back to school and met Tracy at the bus stop.

Chapter 15 - Hard Lessons in Parenting 101

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CAUTION - Intense scenes involving a minor
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Slowly, Josh became aware of a hand shaking his shoulder. Not wanting to leave the warm comfort he felt, he groaned at the hand. "Go 'way!"

Chapter 14 - The Birthday Party

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Looking himself over one last time, he nodded with resigned satisfaction. The blue satin dress looked good on him, flattering his natural curves and making him appear to be every bit the pre-teen girl he was made to become. His visits with Jennifer and the Healy family and to their church over the past two weeks had been blissful reprieves from his home life. While his parents were happy to have him come and go as he pleased, when he was home he'd had to endure a new round of pushing from his parents.

Chapter 13 - Young Love

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The next morning Josh cheerfully made his way toward the bus stop. It was a beautiful late summer day, so he'd worn one of the skirts that used to belong to Tracy and one of the tops Melanie had gotten him. When he saw his best friend at the stop, he smiled wide and jogged forward to greet her.

Chapter 12 - Parental Guidance Suggested

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Sitting in Jennifer's bedroom, the door open, and with a promise from her parents not to 'wander by' to check up on them for at least half an hour, the two sat on her bed next to one another. Before the three had returned to the Healy's home, Josh had decided that it was now or never, so he'd asked her parents for a moment of semi-privacy to talk with Jennifer alone first.

Chapter 11 - Honesty is the Best Policy

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After the service, the family went to their usual restaurant for brunch. Josh was quiet and contemplative, distracted as he mentally deconstructed the topic, The Sermon on the Mount. He didn't understand the context, other than in theory, so all he could do was judge the value based on the words spoken. He ate his turkey club sandwich absently, staring off into space as he pondered the words that seemed to be in total contradiction with the impression his parents had given him of the Christian faith.

Chapter 10 - When All Else Fails

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Josh awoke at six as usual. He almost didn't need the alarm he'd set the night before, having gotten used to rising at that time anyway, but he was taking no chances. Jumping out of bed quickly, he got dressed. Putting on fresh white undies and white tights easily now that he'd had practice at it, he put on a pretty bra and then got into the skirt and blouse.

Chapter 9 - Unexpected Journeys

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After returning home, Josh was truly happy for the first time since the start of school. He had his two best friends again and it actually gave him hope for a moment that, with their help, he could figure a way out of his predicament. They always helped with my parents insisting I'm gay! he reasoned. Slowly though, a new thought dawned on him. I've gone to school three times dressed as a girl! Everyone thinks I want to be one now! It'll be impossible to convince them I really wanna be a boy... even Tracy and David!

Chapter 8 - Altercations

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Petrified as he saw the bus coming, Josh knew it was too late to get a ride from his mother as she'd already gone to work. Getting a ride with his father, which wasn't an option as he was not due back until that afternoon, would have been more humiliating than getting on the bus in a dress. He honestly respected his parents and their right to express their opinions, but he'd gotten enough of a hard time in Primary and Intermediate school when his classmates would see the rolling campaign ad for the Democrat Party. Not because of their politics, but simply because it looked so tacky.

Chapter 7 - School Daze

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Josh could see the group of kids milling about around the bus stop. Coming to a halt, he very nearly chickened out and ran for home. His mother had offered to drive him to school, but he had refused.

Chapter 6 - Self-Deception

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Waking when his alarm went off as usual, Josh turned it off and slowly stretched, trying to clear the cobwebs out of his head. As he opened his eyes, he was confronted by the reality of his situation as the short sleeve of his nightgown came into view. Slowly he remembered the previous day and how he'd caved to his parents' insistence that he was a girl.

Chapter 5 - The Things We Do to Get Along

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Waking up in the dark, Josh looked around the room and saw out the window that it was night. Stretching, he felt a funny pain from his ears. Reaching up to rub his earlobes, he felt the magnetic earring fall off and onto his bed somewhere. The memory of his mother dressing him like a girl for the first time came flooding back to him. Almost getting angry about it, he then remembered the email from David and resigned himself to the fact that in order to get along with everyone, he was going to have to pretend to be the girl that everyone now expected him to be.

Chapter 4 - A New Look

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Josh came down the next morning, showered, clean, ready for school, and completely empty of feelings. He'd cried himself to sleep, awoke late in the night, cried himself back to sleep, and finally woke up again shortly before his alarm was set to go off. Emotionally drained, he knew that his parents would be full of questions for which he had no answers.

Chapter 3 - A Girl's Reputation

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When Josh walked in the door, he headed straight for his room. Repressing an involuntary shudder at the ultra-feminine dwelling, he picked up his phone extension, only to hear the squeal of a modem. Suddenly realizing his father was still at 'work', running his computer consultant business from home on the house's second telephone line that was also his bedroom phone line, he lowered the receiver quickly. Hoping he hadn't kicked his father off-line, he thought quickly and went back down to his father's office.

Chapter 2 - "Girl" Problems

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Their first day started uneventfully. The trio got their locker assignments, their class schedules, and coordinated when they would have time to hang out and share classes. When Josh saw the first class of the day that his parents had signed him up for was Home Economics instead of the Shop class he'd asked for, his heart sank a little more. The only bright point was that he'd be sharing the class with Tracy... and twenty-seven other girls.

Chapter 1 - Natural Assumptions

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A smile broke across Josh's face as he approached the bus stop. The cool air of the September morning stung his nose slightly, but it didn't detract from the happiness he felt at going back to school again. Unlike a lot of the boys in his class, Josh loved school. Now that he was going to Junior High, he would even be going to school with his two best friends, Tracy and David Edwards. He always thought it was silly that just because they lived two blocks over they had to go to completely different Primary and Intermediate schools. Stepping up his approach to a light jog, he couldn't wait to see them.

Prologue

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Josh's eyebrows scrunched up in confusion as he opened the box and looked inside. His fifth birthday party had been fun so far. The cake, while not his favorite chocolate, was good, the bicycle his parents had gotten him was just itching to be ridden, and the other toys he'd gotten were exactly what he'd wanted. Now in utter confusion, he could just stare at the last gift he'd opened.

Epilogue

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Sitting in Erica's office reading the printed copy of the finished manuscript, Brooke flipped through the final pages as she read the words, tears filling her eyes at the remembered heartbreak of losing her best friends. Wiping them away, she finally put down the papers.

Chapter 24 - Every Day is Your Last

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CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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I didn't hear about Jack or Rich until I'd been deployed to Bagram for over six months. When they extended our deployment another six, we were given ten-day Leaves. Mine came up first in rotation, so I got to fly back to Guam where I called Jenny as soon as I could get off base. She told me and I dug up the details after they were already buried and gone.

Heather got a letter from Rich's CO that he'd been killed while volunteering for picket duty, but he didn't know about the association between Rich and Jack, so Heather didn't find out about his death until she called to break the news to Erica. They met up at Arlington and it was the last time any of us in New Hampshire would see any of the California families again. Jenny was there to represent me as a 'friend of the family'. No one ever knew about us while I was serving. I made sure it never showed and Jenny was a rock! She passed the time I was gone with Heather, Faith, her folks, and a promise.

After the funeral, everyone just stopped communicating. It... it was like their deaths killed more than their bodies. It killed their families. Last I ever heard from Erica was a Christmas card from her that she must have sent before she got the letter about Jack, but I didn't even know about that until almost two years later when I came home. After so much time and pain, I just couldn't bring myself to call or write her.

When Erica finally wrote Heather, and she wrote back, none of us knew just how important those letters would become or how much they would change all our lives.

Chapter 23 - No Greater Love

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CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content
CAUTION - Violence

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We mourned with Heather and Rich when they got the news about her not being able to have any more kids. She and Rich wanted more, but things are the way they have to be, right? That's what Jack always used to say. They moved north that fall while Rich worked at fixing up the big house.

They surprised Jenny and I when they told us they were going to give the little house to us. No rent meant Jenny could quit and I could open my own salon with her as my office manager. So in spring of ninety-nine, just after Faith's first birthday, we moved to be with Heather and Rich in Pittsberg.

Meanwhile, Jack and Erica had their own share of troubles. She caught an ectopic pregnancy three months after Jenny and I moved, days after Heather's twenty-fifth birthday, that nearly killed her. She had a radical hysterectomy that saved her life, but meant they too would only have one child. Rich and Heather flew all four of us down there, staying nearly a month, but we had to come home eventually, leaving Jack and Erica alone again. Judith broke her promise and tried tearing them apart, and Frank separated from her over it, though they reconciled after... well...

Things were never the same after that. They never came back to visit us in New Hampshire. Jack couldn't leave his business and Jenny and I couldn't leave ours, and Heather had her practice, so that trip in summer of ninety-nine was the last I ever saw Jack or Erica. We kept in touch, but not enough.

Then everything changed... for everyone.

Chapter 22 - Moving On

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At very least the confrontation between Judith and Rich ended with, if not acceptance, at least tolerance, which is more than I can say about my own parents when I came out to them.

It went about as I'd predicted. Eventually they just stopped communicating with me, even when I reached out to them. I learned later that Dad died in oh-four of a heart attack, and Mom went last year from the same thing. They never returned any of my letters. I wrote twice a year. I just kept busy at a local salon, while Jenny worked her desk at the medical group.

Jenny's parents were out of the country when I came home, and I never met them the two weeks we were together before that, so we didn't meet 'til July of ninety-eight. They were surprised, but not half as much as Jenny was!

In the mean time, Rich and Heather were getting into the swing of being new parents. Rich loved being 'Mister Mom' to Faith and ran the house like his own personal fire team! Shortly after she was born, they started looking into moving. There were too many sad memories lurking around the home she grew up in, and Rich wanted a place that would be all their own.

Chapter 21 - Surprise, Surprise

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I stayed in touch with Jack and Rich while I was overseas. They would call and tell me what was going on in their lives and I in turn lied to them about how great my new posting was. The only benefit of being so bloody far away was that I was still accumulating Leave that I never took, so in the end I got out almost a month early, taking my last twenty-one days as Terminal Leave.

By September second, I was on my way back to CONUS... the Continental US... but things had changed. Jack and Erica were living in Newport Beach and Rich was in New Hampshire, which was where I was headed as fast as I could. I didn't even take the time to call anyone and let them know I got out early. I felt like I was abandoning Jack, especially after all that he'd done for me over the years, but I just had to follow my heart.

Chapter 20 - New Life

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Jenny and I spent the next two weeks together almost constantly. She got her time off of work, though I'm pretty sure Heather had something to do with that! Those weeks we spent together were all that we'd have for the next year. After I went back, I got my PCS notice effective the first of January ninety-seven. They were already drawing down ANAS and shipping us out to other duty stations.

So two weeks after I said goodbye to Jenny, Heather, and Rich, I was saying goodbye to Jack and Erica, too. I was being shipped off to Okinawa, which left me so far from everyone else it wasn't worth trying to get home to see anyone. I poured myself into my job and counted the days. All I had to get me though it was the memory of those blissful two weeks and the occasional phone call that I made off base.

In the interim, Erica graduated with a degree in Psychology, and she and Jack were getting ready to start their new life.

Chapter 19 - Love and Marriage

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Jack not only saw to it Jenny and I had time alone that night, he saw to it we had time the next day before the bridal shower and that night after it! I think Jack was a little in love with the idea of Jenny and I being in love! More than anything though, I think Jack wanted to make sure someone would be there to take care of me, because he knew that very soon, he wouldn't be.

The day of the wedding came and everyone was frantic... except Heather. I worked overtime doing everyone's hair, then getting myself put together, but Heather never faltered or got nervous. That woman's a rock! Unshakable! We girls piled in Heather's limo afterwards, and Gregory drove us to the church in good time.

Later, Jack told me that Rich begged off his own Bachelor Party. Jack still threw it, but Rich didn't go, so neither did Jack! It ended up they spent the evening at a bar around the corner, nursing at beers and reminiscing, while Rich's guests partied hard a block away. It must have been a beauty of a party though, because Jack wouldn't say a word to me about what happened!

So November thirtieth nineteen ninety-six, Rich finally got Heather to say 'I Do'. The wedding was nice. The reception was... well... memorable!

Chapter 18 - Turkey Surprise

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While Jack and them were greeting Rich's parents, I was inside with a bunch of strangers, the only person in uniform, in a place where I didn't even know people's opinions regarding the military. To say I was a bit jumpy is to put it lightly! Even when someone did talk to me, I always felt like a curiosity more than a Marine, or even the supposed Maid of Honor.

Later on, when Jack and I were talking, everyone else being busy, he told me about Judith and what all happened between them that day. I wanted Jack to know that no matter what, I would be there for him and Erica both. There's not a lot of things you can count on in this world, but I think my friendship with Jack and Rich could be counted as one of them.

Most of the time, you think you know what's going to happen in life. Things like Thanksgiving come around and you... you expect certain things. Turkey, stuffing, football, napping on the couch, talking and laughing with family and friends... You know, the predictable things that are why we have things like Thanksgiving in the first place. To take time together with the people we love and make a memory.

Sometimes things happen that you don't expect though, and would and could, never see coming.

Chapter 17 - Giving Thanks

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Jack and I had a blast at the pizza parlor that day while Heather and Erica saw to the fittings. We talked for what seemed like hours, laughed, and had a great time. At one point, the waitress that brought us our drinks said we made a cute couple. I wanted to rip her head off at the time, but Jack just laughed. Looking back, it was kind of funny, and I suppose we did make a cute couple, as weird as that sounds! I guess that's why people believed it so easily for so long.

The next several days were a blur. Not only were we getting ready for the wedding on Saturday, but Thanksgiving was that Thursday and Heather had planned a large get together at her family home for both the wedding party and guests and friends of hers and Rich's from their jobs. Sort of a hybrid Rehearsal Dinner, Office Party, and Thanksgiving all rolled into one. I had doubts if even her huge home could fit everyone.

The biggest worry was Rich and Erica's parents. They were invited of course, but none of us knew if Judith would show or not, what with Jack being the Best Man, and even if she did show, if she would make a scene. Erica told me that she was feeling nervous, like a cat on an unplugged electric fence, scared that at any moment it'd go live. Meanwhile, I was struggling with my own issues. I just didn't know if I could be what Heather needed me to be, and I wanted her to have what she deserved.

So Thanksgiving began with a lot of question marks and ended with more.

Chapter 16 - Wedding Bell Blues

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Heather wasn't kidding or bragging, either. Five huge bedrooms, seven full baths, a great room, a formal dining room, and an adjacent kitchen, all with flawless pinewood floors that shined with two centuries of care and attention. In the wings off the main building was the library, den, music room, and what Heather called the 'Meeting Room'. It had marble floors and it's own huge fireplace, in addition to the one in the great room.

The bedrooms were all on the second and third floors, each with their own private bath, with two bathrooms on the main floor. The attached garage had chauffeur's quarters, as well as a machine shop... and that was just the house!

The property itself was almost beyond description. Forty-five acres with a private pond, apple orchard, woods, walkways, green space, equestrian trails, and, oh yes, lets not forget the 'barn'! The three-story barn with heated stalls and tack room and its own laundry! The second floor was a home for stable workers. Kitchen, living area, bathroom, with the three bedrooms on the third floor, and all of it surrounded by forestlands and fields that were donated to the state as a preserve. It was truly magnificent!

When we first arrived, I thought Heather was trying to show off, but she was just as warm and friendly as she'd always been. She was just very proud of her family home.

Chapter 15 - Homecoming

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True to his word, Jack called the CO first thing Monday and laid it out for him, that he and I had never had a relationship, that it was always a ruse so I wouldn't be pressured for dates, and Erica backed him up the whole way! He was skeptical, but when Erica nearly bit his head off at the accusation that Jack was cheating on her, that sold him. He dropped the whole deal, with no ticklish questions about why. Within hours, I heard that it had gotten around that Jack and I had been a big lie the whole time.

The funny thing is, it didn't get worse. In fact, I hardly ever got hit on again after that! Seems once they learned Jack and I had never been a couple, that I hadn't dated anyone for over five years, the trouser hounds lost interest. Oh sure, I got a few asks right afterwards, but all I had to say was 'no' and they wouldn't ask again. My rep went from 'she must be great in bed' to 'she's frigid' in two days. I was never so thankful for being unpopular!

So my Leave started the last week of November and, since I hadn't used any that year, I was able to take three full weeks. I decided I wanted to take a trip back home on the way out to Heather and Richard's place and spend a day to introduce my best friends to my folks.

Chapter 14 - Everything Changes

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That established the pattern. Jack and Erica would go out with me when I had Liberty and I'd trawl for Ms. Right. Never really got anywhere, but the three of us sure had fun trying! We got together with Rich and Heather a few times for dinner, but it was becoming clear that the guys started getting too busy with their own things to spend any real time together.

Jack got a job managing a dry-cleaners in Palo Alto, meanwhile Rich was busy finishing his degree. With Heather and Rich graduating shortly after he and Jack were officially shifted to the Reserves, a full year ahead of Erica's graduation and sixteen months before the end of my cruise, we all knew it meant big changes were coming in our lives. Rich had talked about taking an office job somewhere in LA so he could be close to Jack, Erica, and his parents, but he never got into any details. I guess he was just stalling.

I remember the last dinner we had all together that summer. It was at Heather and Rich's apartment because it was bigger. I'm pretty sure Jack knew what was coming, but it didn't make it any easier to take.

Chapter 13 - The New Normal

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When Rich, Heather, and I drove back to the bay area in his car, mine stayed with Jack and Erica after we three had properly 'decorated' it. By then I was feeling a little better about things, but not much. I think I did a pretty good job of keeping the boys blissfully unaware, but not Heather. She knew I was upset, and why, without me saying a word.

That week was hell for me. Once word got around that Jack and Erica had gotten married, I had every single serviceman at that base 'dropping by' the shop to give their condolences on the breakup of our relationship, and not too casually expressing their interest at taking his fictional place in my bed. I managed to duck out of them all that week by saying how I was still kind of heartbroken over the whole thing and just wanted to take time away from dating anyone, but I knew they'd be back.

I never realized before that week just how much Jack had helped my time in the Corps be as enjoyable as it was. After he got married, it was a chore. Just work... and I had eighteen months left in my cruise.

When Jack finally returned the next weekend, I got to hear all the details of their Honeymoon. Romantic evenings, dinners at the lake, feeding ducks at some park, I wanted to puke it was so sweet! I'll admit it. I was bitter. Bitter, jealous, and angry with Jack for taking away my protective cloak. I think that's why he did what he did.

Chapter 12 - Big Things Come in Small Buildings

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They buried Mary in the plot next to his father Danny there in Pittsburgh the following Saturday. It was just the two of them and Erica's father Frank there to say goodbye. They flew back the next day and Jack went to work on his big plan.

Jack told me about his plan for the weekend of March twenty-third, ninety-six. He'd thought of everything, but needed Heather and me to help pull it off. So we spent four weeks between Jack burying his mom and the weekend of the twenty-third plotting, scheming, and basically having a blast planning the surprise of a lifetime for both Erica and Richard. Rich almost caught us once. He walked into the shop while I had stuff out he shouldn't see, but he could be a bit oblivious at times. He never had a clue!

Rich once told me that he thought Jack didn't know how to plan ahead... that he seemed incapable of thinking more than five minutes into the future. He thought Jack was wasting his time and opportunities by not going to college on the government dime. We'd earned it, so why not take advantage? The truth is Jack did have a plan for what he wanted to do, he just had different priorities than Rich. He thought love and happiness, even in total poverty, were better than living in the lap of luxury...

...but Jack did know how to plan.

Chapter 11 - The Impatience and Patience of Love

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CAUTION - Sex / Sexual Scenes
CAUTION - Highly Emotional Content

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Erica once told me that the night she and Jack talked upstairs was one of the most romantic experiences of her life. Sounds great when you say it, but if you think about it you come to realize that the logical corollary to that is that it must have been all worse after that! Luckily for her, Jack was only getting started. Besides, Erica had a tendency to exaggerate!

Jack told me that they talked, cried, kissed a few times, and professed their love for one another. That and a bunch of stuff about living in contentment with pain and such. Blah, blah, blah. Richard was a wreck. He hid it well, but I knew him better than anyone except Jack, even better than Heather. He was torn between wanting to see Jack happy against his protectiveness of Erica. I guess that means protecting her from ever growing up, having fun, sex, a marriage, children... etc. Men are idiots!

The rest of New Years morning was uneventful, unless of course you count Jack's proposal to Erica, but then I'm pretty sure they both knew it was only Jack being Jack. I told you that story already, though. The next few weeks were hard on them. Jack had no Liberty and Erica was swamped with school. Richard and Heather had gotten to the 'comfortable' part of being a couple, so they were used to the separation. Plus, they were sleeping together, which took off a lot of the tension. Jack and Erica... well... Erica told me what they weren't doing.

It got difficult for them to go slowly after only six weeks. Their needs pushed them father and faster than they'd planned to go, but sometimes you realize you gotta to take hold of life fast, and live it while you still have the chance.

Chapter 10 - Revelations

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Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

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I spent my next Liberty with Erica. She talked while I listened and messed with her hair. I learned a lot about Jack, things he never told me. I understand why he'd kept it to himself, though. He'd endured so much pain, it's amazing he was only as nuts as he seemed to be! No one want's that to show.

I learned a lot about Rich, too. She didn't talk as animatedly about him as she did Jack, but she knew all his secrets! I don't know what it is about being a beautician, but women will bear their souls to us the way guys do with a bartender. They tell us things they won't even tell their shrink!

For Jack's part, he was just so damnably, blissfully, innocently, ignorant of Erica's feelings toward him it was hard to watch! It wasn't that Jack didn't see her that way because she was younger, but because of something much more basic. She was his best friend's sister, and that made her almost like his own. It's a little creepy if you think too hard about it!

Jack wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Erica loved him, and had loved him through some of the worst times of his life. He wasn't about to let that get away, no matter who she was.

Chapter 9 - Christmas Gifts

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Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

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The next day Rich called Heather and told her that Jack stepped aside, but Heather wouldn't have it. She insisted on a date with Jack and wouldn't take no for an answer. Jack said it was good, friendly and warm, but they quickly learned that he and Heather would never have worked out in the end. She was made for Rich and Jack could already see she was in love with him.

Heather and Rich were inseparable after that. For about six weeks, every minute of Liberty Rich had was spent with her, leaving Jack and I to fumble around on our own. It wasn't until Rich's twenty-fourth birthday that Jack and I got to spend any time with him again, but by then it was a foursome.

Rich was done dating and Jack was stuck as my 'boyfriend' for the interim. We went on a triple date once. Rich and Heather, Jack and... Marie I think her name was... and me and Julie. It was awkward because they were first dates for Jack and me, but Heather and Rich were a permanent couple, so I think it made our dates a little uncomfortable. We never did it again.

By the end of the following year, Jack was in a bit of a depression. He was happy for Rich and Heather, but he'd begun to feel like he was never going to find anyone that would love him. It was shortly before Christmas ninety-five that I found myself in a position to repay all the help Jack had ever given me, plus interest.

Chapter 8 - Fate or Chance

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Link: Every Day Is Your Last Title Page and Description

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After that day, Jack, Rich, and I were inseparable. There were rumors that I was dating Jack while sleeping with Rich, but we didn't care. Rich about killed PFC Ricks the one time he called Jack a cuck and wasn't just shitting around. We had lots of fun and I never got caught. Jack made sure of that.

Not that I was sleeping around a lot, mind you, but I went on a few dates, mostly with college girls. I never risked dating a fellow W-M. While Rich and Jack were running cover for me, I couldn't count on any of them having similar arrangements. We also never went anywhere that was near the base.

If I had a date, which was rare, it was always somewhere remote and out of the way... never any of the usual places the Hellcats or anchor-clankers might go. The only times we'd go places like the Warf or any place we could get seen it was the three of us, sometimes with a girl Rich was seeing, but never with a girl Jack was seeing. That wasn't often and never the same girl more than once, for any of us!

By ninety-four, things got easier with 'don't ask, don't tell', but we kept up the pretense of Jack being my boyfriend because it just made things easier. For me, anyway. Most W-Ms got hit on all the time, but once it got around that Jack and I were an item, I was off limits. Grunts had no qualms about hitting on W-Ms if they we're seeing a civi or were even married to one, but they'd rarely turn on a fellow member of the Corps. I felt bad for Jack, though. It made his success rate with the ladies track nearly to zero.

Even when it looked like maybe Jack had a shot at a terrific girl, something would always screw it up.

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