Not another love story

This is not my first venture into the world of blogs. This is however, the first time I have written anything in many years, and the first time to use this site. This is the first and will give you a little introduction into parts of my world.

I love sitting outside, I love to read, and at this point in time I love to smoke. I am private person when it comes to sharing my personal life at work. 

So I've been deployed for the past while. I have friends; but, I've been hiding out with a different unit for most of the time out here. It gets lonely but it works for me. So, I took a trip across a war torn country to where most of the people I normally work with in the states are. I was outside reading some random book that honestly wasn't good enough to remember. There was a soldier walking around where I was sittin' reading. I think his name (last) was something like Dix (People really do have last names like that.) He started talking to me, not taking hints and then flat out ignoring "I'm not interested in talking to you." So I started thinking about the first time I met Lionel. And since my audience was so captivated I started to tell Dix about my loving fiance. I told him the story from beginning to end. This is part of it (don't stop reading yet): We had the whole beautiful met in college, got together and stayed together from the time I was 17 and he was 19. We had our first date on my 17th birthday. It's now five years later and we're still happy. I'm in the military, deployed; he's still in college Changed his major like 3 times, as of last week he wanted to double in business and bio-engineering. I told this next "The first. The first bite, the first smile, the first love. Well, I know this is not the first. I am hoping this is the last. The last man I laugh with, the last I will sleep next to at night, the last man my eyes are to see before I die and the first to not make me cry. He's done so well so far. We'll be getting married when the unit gets back from this deployment." After this whole spiel the kid backs off a little bit. Still tries to sit and talk to me. I learned more about him then I ever wanted to know. A sad kid that comes back to see me everyday till I leave. 

So on my second to last day their I'm smoking with an old buddy, this kid comes up to me, lights a cigarette and invites himself into the circle. When he can get a word in edge wise he thinks back to the first conversation we had and asks me about Lionel. I say he's fine, happy and can't wait to see me. Me and my buddy go back into the office. He heads "home."

"Who's this Lionel feller?"

I thought about it first,  I looked at my buddy and laughed. I told him it was my prince come to life, my white knight in shining armor, my fiance.  A figment of my imagination to protect me from the misguided thoughts and longings of a sad and lost soldier.This Lionel feller well, he just doesn't exist.