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happened,
Ell?”
    “My mom needs me
to help her with something. It’s important,” I lied.
    Tim cocked his
head and frowned. “It can’t wait until tomorrow?”
    “No, I’m sorry.
Will you take me home?” Part of me was kicking myself, knowing that I would
never feel better about my relationship with Tim if I made a habit out of lying
to him. The other part, the part that missed Spencer like a phantom limb,
couldn’t get home fast enough.
    ***
    I jumped out of
the car as soon as Tim pulled into my driveway. “Thanks, Tim! See you
tomorrow!” I called as I rounded the car. I stuck my head through his open
window and kissed his cheek. He started to reach for me, but I bounded up the
porch steps and through the door, not looking back.
    My mom was sitting
on the couch reading a travel magazine when I came in. “Hey honey, how was your
date?”
    “It was fine,” I
answered with a wave of my hand. “Where’s the letter?”
    “On the counter,”
Mom replied with a chuckle.
    I darted into the
kitchen and snatched the letter off the counter with greedy hands. I took it
outside and went to the swing set in the backyard. Spencer and I had spent
countless nights hanging out on the swings when we were younger, and it gave me
some comfort to go out there now that he was away. I swung back and forth for a
few minutes, staring at the outside of the envelope. Above the return address
the name read, ‘Recruit Hawkins.’
    With shaky
fingers, I opened the letter and pulled out two separate papers, each with a
number on the outside. I unfolded the letter that was labeled with a number
‘1.’ His handwriting was almost illegible, obviously written in a hurry. I
smiled as I began to read.

 
    Dear Ellie,
    It’s Wednesday, and I haven’t slept since I
woke up Monday morning. I can honestly say this has been the strangest experience of my life. It’s probably five
or six at night right now and we are finally going to get some sleep in a few
hours. These other recruits were getting yelled at all day for falling asleep.
It’s so weird not being able to call you and tell you about everything. There’s
been some funny shit happening but it’s hard to remember stuff like that right
now since I haven’t slept in two days. And obviously since I’ve mentioned sleep
three times now, that’s all I’m thinking about.
    Just so you know, recruits are treated like
the absolute stupidest, scummiest, filthiest beings on this planet. But I guess
if we all have to go through it in order to call ourselves Marines, I’ll do
what I have to do. Each week is called something different based on what we’re
doing, and this week is called Receiving Week, because we’re just getting here
and getting all of our shit. The real work starts on Friday, or Black Friday,
as it’s called. That’s when we meet the DI’s that will be with us for the rest
of boot camp. All right, I’m passing out as I’m writing this. I hope you’re
doing well. (And you’re not too bored without me.)
    Be
back soon,
    Spence
    I sighed as I
folded the letter along its creases. I took a calming breath and unfolded the
next one. This letter was dated a week after the first one, which was why I
hadn’t gotten anything sooner. This one wasn’t as hastily scrawled, but was
just as short as the last one.

 
    Dear Ellie,
    I haven’t had time to write in the last
week. Receiving Week was crazy, but every day gets a little better than the
last. When we first met our DI’s, things were hectic as all hell . One of them reminds of Will Smith (in a
really cool way), so I just pretend I’m in a movie and this isn’t really
happening. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like reality anyway.
      I don’t understand why they would issue
us recruits so much nice stuff only to have it dumped on the floor and mixed
with other people’s stuff, then shoved in our footlockers and not giving us
time to organize it for days. Then they expect us to pull it out in a second
and we don’t