actually do get pregnant?
I could hear the pain in his voice as he spoke, though, so I decided not to mention anything about that. Instead, I just placed my hand on his back and closed my eyes, trying to fight back the emotion inside of me.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to come home again, Lindsey,” he said. “So you don’t have to wait for me this time...I’d understand if you didn’t want to.”
As I listened, tears began to fill my eyes.
“Alex...” I whispered. “I’ll wait for you again. I promise.”
Then I squeezed him tightly and instantly began to wonder if that would be a promise I’d actually be able to keep...
My Special Forces Boyfriend, Part 2
E ight years went by. I never heard from Alex. I tried to contact the military and ask them if he was okay, but because Alex was a Special Forces officer, they were never able to give me any information. They always just told me the same old thing:
“It’s confidential.”
They said that if I had been his wife, then they would have at least been able to tell me whether or not he was alive, but since I was just his friend, there was nothing that they could do.
I wasn’t necessarily angry, just worried. I pictured Alex on some mission somewhere overseas, getting captured by the enemy and tortured for information. It was the first thing I always imagined, but I prayed that I was wrong.
But all of my personal concerns for Alex seemed small at that point in my life. I had other, more immediate concerns.
My son, Ryan, was turning seven years old. And my amazing husband, William, and I were celebrating our seventh wedding anniversary. On the surface, these two facts seem pretty ordinary. But I was filled with secrets.
William and I had met just a month after Alex and I’s first time having sex in the dorm room. At that point, I already knew that I was pregnant with Alex’s child. A missed period and a positive pregnancy test were the only proof that I needed. I decided not to tell William about it, though. If he had known that I was pregnant with another man’s child, he probably wouldn’t have had anything to do with me.
But the months went by and my pregnancy became obvious. My growing belly was something that I couldn’t hide. So eventually I told William that he and I were going to be parents. He, of course, assumed that the child was his and I wasn’t going to tell him otherwise.
The week after giving William the news, he proposed to me and I said yes. I had promised Alex that I would wait for him, but I couldn’t keep my promise. I had no idea when or if I would ever actually see him again and I needed to make sure that my child was taken care of.
So William and I started our life together. I had Ryan during the summer after my sophomore year of college. I was able to finish school, which turned out to be difficult with a newborn, but afterwards William and I moved back to my hometown, where he found a job and I became a stay-at-home mom.
Life had changed so much in just eight years. But despite my current, happy life as a wife and mom, my thoughts were still on Alex, wondering where he was and what he was doing, hoping that he was okay.
***
“H oney, are you almost ready? I just finished dropping Ryan off at your mom’s house. He was really excited to spend the night at his grandmas,” William said, as he stepped into the bedroom where I was still trying to decide what to wear that night.
“He does love his grandma,” I said, smiling. “Thanks for taking him over there. I’m going to miss him, but it’s just one night I guess.”
William nodded in agreement.
“Yes, it’s just one evening, Lindsey,” he responded. “Now, come on, we’re going to be late if you don’t hurry.”
I glanced at the clock on the wall and then turned back toward William.
“Babe, we don’t have to go to this thing if you don’t want to,” I said. “I mean I probably won’t recognize anybody there anyway.”
William stepped