Chapter 1

Kyle drove straight home, told his parents that he had just ended the relationship with Stephanie, without any further explanation, and then sat down on their back porch and drank one of his father's cans of beer. The following Monday, he drove to the campus, met with the contacts that he had been given by the army, and completed the planning and enrollment procedures that would allow him to start in the mid year term.

Kyle chose to live in the dorm initially, even though the army was paying him his full salary and all benefits. He thought that dorm living would be more like barracks living, and the bonds formed there would strengthen each students position and be mutually supportive. Naturally, there are always a few guys in a dorm that are there for the party and not the education, but Kyle was able to ignore the distractions they caused, and his first term went well. He continued in the summer term, and then spent three weeks at Fort Benning, working for the General in his administrative office, just so that the General could watch and learn more about his young soldier. In the fall, Kyle returned to the campus, and his dorm room, immersing himself in his studies and only rarely taking time to relax with his roommates. It was on one of those rare occasions, at a Christmas party in the lower level of his dorm that he met Amy. When he first saw her, from across the room, he actually thought it was Stephanie and he immediately wondered how he would handle seeing her again. He thought that Stephanie was enrolled, but had not seen her anywhere on campus, nor had he sought her out. He was relieved, this night, to find that the pretty girl was not Stephanie Meyers, and to learn that it was, in fact, a very charming and outgoing young lady named Amy Wagner. But it was strange, too, that except for certain facial differences, she looked remarkably like Stephanie Meyers.

He was more than surprised when Amy called the next afternoon and invited him to join her at the student union for a cup of hot chocolate. He couldn't refuse, even though he thought at the time that he would have preferred to study and not waste time with small talk in the student union. As he walked across the campus, he began to realize that his roommates were correct and that he had been much too intense in his studies, and had actually become almost reclusive. That brightened his outlook and he was actually smiling when he entered the building to meet Amy.

Like Kyle, Amy was a good student, majoring in literature and history. Class size for first and second year students could exceed several hundred students, and since Kyle had also considered history as a major, they found that they shared some of the same classes and professors although their seats were at opposite ends of the lecture hall.

Their hot chocolate date blossomed into study sessions and eventually to movies and then dinners and finally, by the time the snow had melted, they found themselves awakening in his bed, arms around each other and her legs wrapped around his waist. They smiled and kissed, each remembering the tender moment when he looked into her eyes and she nodded yes and he entered her for the first time. Kyle and Amy spent many more days, and nights, together after that. In a rather awkward moment one day later that spring, they were walking across campus on the way to his dorm. They were talking to and looking at each other, and ignoring others on the sidewalk and simply not paying attention when Kyle managed to have a minor collision with an oncoming student, unfortunately scattering that student's books across the grass. As they each went to retrieve the textbooks, the innocent victim began laughing.

"I think this is how we met once before, except I ran into you that time."

Kyle looked up in surprise to find the smiling face of Stephanie Meyers. "Hello, Stephanie. How are you? How have you been?