Chapter 6
Present Day
It had rained the night before, so the world smelled clean and fresh. Small puddles were disappearing into the warmth of the day, but water lingered in the shadows where the sun couldn't reach yet. It was a beautiful, perfect California day, but even the weather couldn't relieve me of my funk.
The line was mercifully short at the coffee shop, and I took my mocha latte with extra whip outside so I could sit in the sunshine. At least the chocolatey coffee combo was starting to lift my mood. I sipped gently and closed my eyes, letting the sunshine and memories flood through me.
Tony's smile. His easy laugh. The way the light caught his eyes and made them shine.
I finished off the whip cream on my coffee and moved out of the sun and into the shade. Despite living in California for almost twenty years, I still burned like paper in a furnace.
I opened my eyes and took another sip of my coffee. A ladybug had landed on the lid of my coffee. I smiled and coaxed the small red and black insect onto a leaf and away from my coffee. Ladybugs were lucky. Tony used to call me ladybug. A man in a leather jacket bumped into me, murmuring an apology before disappearing around the corner. He had jet black hair and brown eyes... and looked just like Tony.
My mouth reacted before I had time to think logically. "Tony!" I hurried after him, almost running to catch up with him. I turned the corner to see the back of his head disappear around another building.
"Frontera!" I yelled out, hoping that he would respond. I flew around the building, jostling several people out of my way in order to get to him. Out of breath, I rounded the corner and came into a small courtyard with a marble fountain in the center. Other than the fountain and myself, there was no one there.
I leaned against the wall. There was no where else the man could have gone. I must have been imagining things. It couldn't have been Tony. Tony was dead, not walking around the streets in a leather jacket and not looking a day over thirty.
I tossed what was left of my coffee in a trashcan. Most of it was now spilled across my arm anyway. I thought about just going home, but the fountain emanated a quiet peacefulness that I craved.
I went and sat on the grass at the base of the fountain. The gentle sound of falling water was soothing to my soul. I leaned my head back against the cool marble, letting my thoughts drift again.
Tony and I stood in the corner, our foreheads pressed together, pretending we were in our own little world and that we could stay there forever. We didn't speak; we didn't need to. He was leaving. He was only here on vacation and now had to return to duty. All he could tell me was that he was going to the Middle East. It was dangerous, but he promised me he would come back.
"You know I'm going to write you every day, right?" he whispered. I gave a tiny nod, not wanting to break away. I was desperately trying to keep my tears at bay.
"You better."
He reached up and caressed my cheek, lifting his head so that he could kiss the tip of my nose. I could hear Dean and Rachel enter the room, and I silently cursed them. If they were downstairs, it meant it was time for us to leave for the airport. Despite my fervent wishes, time was marching onward and Tony needed to get on a plane.
I held Tony's hand, afraid to let him go. I had fallen hard for him in just the space of a couple of days. My heart told me that he was the one. He was the one I was supposed to be with. Fate had pushed us together and I wanted to slap her for making us part.
"It's only going to be for a little while, I promise," Tony said quietly, as if reading my thoughts. "I love you."
I met his eyes, seeing the love and heartache. They were warm like a summer's day. I could live in those eyes.
"I love you. I think I always will." I kissed him then, letting my lips show him because word
s didn't seem adequate. I loved him with my whole heart, with every fiber of my being. We had a connection that I had never thought possible, especially after such a short amount of time.
He had written me every day after that. The letters had arrived at my new LA address without incident. I had looked forward to them like a child at Christmas. They had been sent to a base in Texas for some additional training before being sent away. I had thought about buying a plane ticket to visit him, but I didn't have the funds or available vacation time.
When Iraq invaded Kuwait and triggered the start of the Gulf War, the letters had slowed. Tony, Dean, and Matt had all been sent on a mission and the letters became less frequent as the danger to them increased. One night in January, I woke up screaming for him. My poor roommate was scared half to death. Then the letters stopped arriving. I called military bases and media outlets, desperately checking casualty lists. I had collapsed when I found his name on one of them. Sgt. Anthony Frontera: Killed In Action.
I was in shock for days. When I finally stopped crying, I picked up the phone to call Rachel and Jenny, to see if they new anything. Jenny told me she hadn't spoken to Matt since the airport. Rachel, on the other hand...
"Rachel," I asked into the phone. I could hear what sounded like a busy office in the background. "Do you ever talk to Dean at all?"
She sighed. "No. He never wrote me. Not even once. He broke my heart, Kimberly," she said bitterly. "I don't want to talk about him, okay? Just pretend like we never met those boys."
I didn't have the heart to tell her after that. I knew Dean and Matt were injured in whatever had killed Tony, but if she didn't want to know, I wasn't going to be the one to tell her. We never really talked much after that. We exchanged the regular happy Christmas card updates, and became friends on myFace as the years went on, but we were no longer a part of each other's lives.
I wasn't sure how Rachel and Dean had come back to each other after being apart for so long, but the wedding invitation was proof enough that they had. I was happy for them. It was a love story that should have warmed my heart, but my loss of Tony made it bittersweet. My love story didn't have a happy ending. It never would.
I wiped a tear from my cheek. That had been over twenty years ago. I had often wondered what my life would have been like if Tony hadn't died. I liked to think we would have ended up happily married with kids and a dog. I had never found anyone that made me feel the way he did.
"It would be better than this," I said softly. My life wasn't bad, but it was lonely. I had friends and a job that I enjoyed, did yoga on weekends and was part of a book club, but it wasn't enough. My own family was gone and I didn't have a husband or children. I was very much alone in the world.