She watched, teary eyed, as the bus rolled away down the pavement. That bus carried away her soul, her one and only. The very person whom she loved with her whole heart. Her solider.

They were recruiting him for their army, and, like any decent man would, he went. He wasn’t a man made for war. He was kind hearted, shy. Her soft spoken Noah. She shook her head thinking about him, crouched down behind a tree, pointing a gun at – no. She couldn’t think about that right now.

She’d known him since she was eight and he was ten. They used to run around, playing in their backyards together. She still had the mark on her knee, from when he pushed her down on the cement when she was twelve. She beat him at basketball, and he never was a good sport about stuff like that. She smiled, thinking back. Of course, that was before she realized that she was supposed to act like a girl.

In the ninth grade, when high school started, she changed. She started wearing dresses and earrings and makeup, and got her hair cut into a feminine style. He didn’t take to the change well, but she didn’t care. She traded in her skateboard for a purse, and she traded him in for her new giggly girl friends, and she didn’t even know why.

All throughout high school they drifted further and further apart, and soon they only talked every once in a while. They were no longer the best of friends; they were associates, but they both knew deep down that they would always be more than that. She was always there for him. She never turned him away when he showed up at three in the morning, knocking on her front door, looking for a quiet place to sleep.

Their relationship flourished when they got to college, and she started to depend on him for everything. He was her skateboarding sweetheart, and sometimes she’d join him, just for old times’ sake. She never did forget the way the wind felt in her hair, or the way he laughed at her form when she jumped on a board. She never got too into it through. She wouldn’t let herself.

She remembered back to their wedding night, almost a year ago now. She was so happy then, ready to settle down and have a family with the man she loved. Her parents thought it was too soon; they liked Noah, but Catherine was their only child, and they didn’t trust her judgment. She proved them wrong, though.

She had loved him since she was eight, and she couldn’t imagine her life without him. She sighed as she starred after the bus. It was gone, and the dust that had risen from the dirt road had settled back down to the ground. It had found its place in the universe. Catherine looked down at her slightly rounded belly. Six months from now, and she would be giving birth to Noah’s child. She didn’t tell him before he left; she didn’t want him to have more to worry about. She started down the small dirt path to her home, almost tripping over a small wooden board. She looked down. It looked just like the board she used to have as a kid, worn and damaged, to the point that the picture on the bottom was not legible anymore. She smiled, placed her feet, and took off. If he could only see her now.