CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

ZANE LEWIS

I look out over the lake where Harper left me. I have no idea what the hell to do with myself. I figure I might as well go home, but I don’t really want to. There’s nothing for me there, and I might end up getting there right after Nadine tells my parents about what she saw Harper and me doing the night before.

I’m about to get in my car and leave the lake when another car pulls into the parking area. It’s my dad, and for a second I feel guilty, thinking that for sure Nadine has gone to my parents, and this is him here to chew me out.

“Glad I caught you before you left,” Dad says through the window, pulling into the spot next to mine in the little lot. “Wanna talk to you a bit, and this is a good place for it.”

“What’s up, Dad?” I lean against my rental, my heart beating faster at the idea that I’m about to get read the riot act about fooling around with the next door neighbor’s daughter.

“I’m worried about you because you don’t seem to have much of a plan when it comes to the army. The anniversary parties seem to have taken over your vacation and I thought it was time to focus on what’s happening in your life,” Dad says.

I almost breathe a sigh of relief at that opening.

“I’ve got a couple of months to think about it before I have to pull the trigger,” I say.

“I got to thinking, when I heard you were up for discharge, you might be somewhere shacked up with someone, or at least on your way to hooking up. That’s what you kids say these days, right?”

I have to laugh at the sound of my Dad saying ‘hooking up.’

“Yeah, something like that,” I say.

“I used to take your mom out here for the occasional romantic picnic, so I figured if you did find a girl, this might be where you’d go,” Dad says, and flashes me a grin. “Imagine my surprise to see you here by yourself.”

“I just came out here to think,” I tell him.

“What’s on your mind? The reenlistment thing?”

I think about it for a minute and decide to mostly go with that. “Everyone I know from high school is doing stuff with their lives,” I say.

“So are you, serving your country, making rank,” Dad points out.

“Yeah, but they have actual, like, lives, you know?” I decide to sit on the warm asphalt of the parking lot and Dad perches himself on a parking bumper near me. It’d be more comfortable to go out to the actual shore of the lake, or on the grass that slopes down to it, but I don’t care.

“Okay, here’s the thing. I don’t know if I want to reenlist or not, and it’s kind of complicated the reason why,” I tell him.

“Well, talk to me about it, and we’ll figure out if it’s as complicated as it looks from the inside,” Dad suggests.

“It’s about a girl,” I say, making a face.

Dad laughs. “It’s almost always about a girl at the end of the day, even if it doesn’t look like it,” he says.

“Anyway, so there’s this girl that I’m sort of… I guess I’m sort of into her. I’ve known her for a while now, and it’s only in the last… couple of weeks that I started seeing her differently, as someone I might want to date,” I explain.

I want to cover the fact that it’s Harper I’m thinking about as much as I can. I don’t even really know why I’m asking my dad for advice about Harper at all. Except for the fact that it’s only just occurred to me that there’s more to the situation than some fun fooling around.

“Have you been dating her or anything? Is that why you didn’t get a date for the party the other night?”

I shrug. “We’re talking, and we’ve done some stuff together, but there’s no real tie there,” I say. That’s as close as I can come to telling the truth without coming right out and saying it’s Harper.

“But you’re into her, more than just a fling, or a one-night stand,” Dad says.

I nod. “I mean, we haven’t really talked about what it is specifically, but I guess things aren’t… they’re not serious, but I have some feelings there.” It feels weird to talk to my Dad like this. We don’t really talk about feelings, even feelings towards girls.

“And this is mixing up in your mind about whether or not you should reenlist?” Dad’s confused by the connection, and I try to think of a way to explain it without telling him about Harper. I want to put that off as long as possible.

“She lives away from base. Like, really away from base. So it would be easier to keep seeing her, to see if there’s anything to it, if I don’t reenlist. But I don’t even know if there’s anything to it, so what if I get out and then find that it’s just some three-month thing?”

Dad looks down at his hands for a few moments and I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder if it sounds as stupid to him as it does to me, wondering if I should leave the military for a woman.

“This is someone you’ve known a while, I take it. If it’s someone you’re starting to see, I couldn’t see this coming up as a reason not to reenlist,” Dad says finally.

“Yeah, I’ve known her a really good, long while,” I tell him. “Years, in fact. Just, I didn’t really think of her that way before, but now that I do, it sort of feels weird to let it drop when it might be something.”

For a few minutes Dad’s quiet, and I don’t know what to think. Has he figured out that I’m talking about Harper? I sure as hell hope not. Sitting there in the parking lot at the lake, I realize I might have tipped my hand off to him on accident.

“I think you need to look at the whole situation if you want a good answer to this. Obviously, this is an important thing right now, but it’s not the only important thing,” Dad says.

“I know, making my decision based on some girl I might or might not be with this time next year seems stupid,” I agree.

“You should think about what the military has to offer you, and the fact that, being a vet, you’re actually a pretty good candidate for a lot of non-military jobs. And you need to decide how serious you are about this girl,” Dad tells me.

“Right,” I say, nodding. I know it’s going to take me a while to mull over what he’s saying, but for the time being I’m just glad for advice of any kind. I can’t tell whether or not Dad knows it’s Harper. That bit about me knowing her for a while might be a hint, but I want to hear what he has to say, think about it, and figure it out from there.

“If you’re serious about this girl, and you know you’re serious about her even if it doesn’t last beyond a few months, you should consider leaving the military if it will make it easier to figure out where things are between the two of you,” Dad continues.

“I should?” I would have figured that Dad would tell me not to think about that aspect of it at all.

“If you’re serious — not if it’s just something you’re pinning a lot of promise on that isn’t going to go anywhere. At this point you’ve served your country honorably, and they’re letting you leave if you want to. What’s the harm? But if you don’t think it’s that serious, you need to reenlist and break all ties with her as soon as you can so you can both move on with your lives.”

I nod. It’s actually kind of solid advice, and I’m surprised at the fact that I’m surprised by it.

I chat with Dad a little while longer and we both decide that we’re tired of sitting in the parking lot. I have no idea what’s going on with Harper, but I figure I will find out soon enough once I get back home.

Dad tells me he’s going to go to the store to pick up some bread to make sandwiches of the leftover meat, and I tell him I’m going to head back to the house and see if Mom needs my help with anything.

The whole drive home I’m lost in thought. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I know I have to make up my mind one way or another.

Harper and I are going to have to talk at some point.