I came home from a four-year deployment expecting a tearful reunion. Instead, I found my fiancée in the yard—hugged, kissed, and very pregnant. And the man holding her was the last person I ever expected.
My name’s Ethan, I’m 27, and until a few weeks ago, the Army owned my life. Four-year infantry contract overseas. Dust, bad coffee, worse chow, the same seven jokes recycled in every platoon, and a kind of exhaustion that lived in your bones.
I’m not trying to make it sound heroic. It wasn’t a movie. It was just my job.
Before I left, my whole world fit inside our little town in northern Georgia. One stoplight. One diner.
One church that doubled as a gossip hub. The gas station cashier knew what kind of chips I bought and my mom’s blood pressure numbers. And there was Claire.
She was the girl I sat next to in freshman bio, the girl who wrote our initials in Sharpie on the underside of the bleachers, the girl who cried into my uniform the day I shipped out. “Four years isn’t forever,” she’d said, wiping snot on my sleeve. “I’ll still be here.
…The story doesn’t end here, it continues on the next page 👇
