“Is that when you got this?” She tapped my arm where the bottom of my tattoo peeked out of my shirt sleeve. We were both bare-ass naked from the waist down but had kept our shirts on. That was kind of fucked up. Sitting up, I reached down and picked Sam’s shorts and panties off the bottom of the boat. Thankfully they were dry. She pulled them on and then settled into the seat opposite me. I handed her another Coke and took one for myself. I needed the caffeine and sugar to get me through the story. I wished I’d brought some beer.

“Yup. All of us after we got out of SOI. We ran off to the first tattoo parlor we could find and got ourselves all tatted up. Semper Fi,” I said mockingly. “And all of this thrilled Carrie. Her boyfriend had turned into something other girls wanted, but it also made her insecure. She flirted a lot with other guys to make me jealous. We fought a lot and had crazy make up sex. I didn’t realize at the time that we were fucked up. Inside the bubble it felt normal. We got to see each other fairly regularly. She'd drive up to base and we'd stay at a hotel on the weekends if my battle buddy wasn't around.

“A few months into my deployment, I hear that she's been coming down regularly, every weekend, which at first seemed like she was just trying to be part of the network. I'd thought about proposing to her when I got back from my deployment. It was only going to be seven months. Then I hear she's been seen with a recruiting officer. The same goddamn 2nd Lieutenant that had signed me up. I got leave halfway through deployment, but I didn't tell her."

"I know the end of the story but already I don't like it."

"Yeah, me neither. Want me to stop now?"

"Nope." She tapped her can against mine and then took another sip. I downed the sugary sweet soda and then crumpled the can in my hand.

"I get back to base and I wait in my car outside the LT's recruiting office until it closes and then I follow him. LT can afford to live off base, and he's got an apartment in Oceanside with some other officer. I wait outside of his condo. If he doesn't meet up with her, then I've wasted a whole afternoon and evening of my tiny leave with this and that pissed me off but I had to know.

"He goes in, does whatever inside, and then an hour later, she shows up in the car her daddy bought her when she graduated from high school. She's wearing barely any clothes and fuck me heels. He comes outside and starts making out with her, playing grab ass on the street. I almost get out of my car then but something tells me to wait. He takes her keys and they get in and drive to a small private beach down along the coast, between San Diego and Oceanside and then…”

I stopped when Sam reached for the can in my hand. I saw that I’d been squeezing it so hard some of the metal had pierced my skin. With a sigh, I released the can so I wouldn’t continue to make myself bleed, even though recounting this whole episode seemed like I’m reopening a scabbed-over wound. "Then they start fucking in the car. I didn't get it then. I thought maybe she saw me and was giving me the ultimate middle finger. I found out later that his roommate had told him that he either stopped screwing around with a deployed Marine's girlfriend or he'd report him to his superiors, so they had to resort to screwing in her car whenever they wanted to get off."

"I got out of the car and rapped on her window, staring at her ass gyrating like she’s a stripper, until they finally heard me. She starts sniveling and crying and saying that he forced her. That didn't fly with me, so she changed her story. She was trying to help me get ahead. He just sat there like a dumbass, sitting on his thumb while he let her twist in the wind. I figured he was the kind of guy that if I decked him, he'd report me, and I wasn't going to fuck up my career for this bitch or that asshole."

"No touching the officers." Sam knew immediately why I couldn’t have beaten the officer like I wanted to. Enlisted men don’t ever touch officers. That was an automatic Article 15 or non-judicial punishment at the very least.

"Right. So I tell this girl that I dated for over three years, the girl I thought about proposing to, that I didn't want to see her cheating ass ever again. I left and got sick drunk and returned to A-stan."

"But that wasn't the end of it."

Stretching out my hand, I threaded a few strands of Sam’s honey-blonde hair through my fingers. It felt like silk, finer than anything I’d touched before. The sunlight made her hair look a thousand different colors. I knew I could stare at it for weeks and not see the same thing. I could barely remember Carrie’s hair, and I knew I hadn’t ever been this fascinated with it. "Nope. The LT sends me an email while I'm deployed, telling me that I better get to the health center because my bitch gave him syph. And that he wasn't the only guy she was fucking while I was gone."

"Is that true?"

"Don't know, but I checked out fine."

We sat there as she took in my sad little tale. I kept sifting through her hair. She didn’t try to tell me that I should’ve given Carrie another chance or that deployments were hard on everyone. She didn’t try to offer any sympathy or, worse, pity. The wound I thought I had re-opened lacked the sharp pain that usually accompanied thoughts of her perfidy. Maybe I’d only had a little poison inside of me and we’d bled it out.

Her hand squeezed mine tight and then she turned and kissed my hand.

“I’ve never been to San Diego. I’d like to visit sometime.”

“You can come and visit me,” I joked but then I realized I was serious. I wanted her to visit me. I wanted to stay connected to her in some way.

“Maybe I will.”

I wanted to change the subject and talk about something other than cheating girlfriends, dead husbands or the Corps. "Tell me about your knitting."

She told me about how a widow from the Yarn Over Knitting Club had reached out to her after Sam's story was told in their local newspaper, and how she hadn't wanted to go but her therapist thought it was a good idea.

"You still could have stayed home," I pointed out.

"I don't think my parents would have let me. I had moved out of my condo when Will and I got married but then after he died, I didn't do a very good job caring for myself so I had to move back home for a while.”

The thought of a grieving Sam not feeding herself made me sick to my stomach and I curled an arm around her and brought her closer to me. It was strange but when she talked about how much she loved Will, that actually made me feel better. Like she was different and that she would've been faithful, unlike so many other women I knew. And men, too, I guess. The military didn't foster fidelity. Even though there were rules against it, adultery and cheating ran rampant through the Corps. It was almost expected that one of your comrades would sleep with your girl the first chance he got. If you didn't get cheated on, it was like you hadn't been tested in battle. I didn't know how other people started trusting enough to start up another relationship or maybe they just knew going in that they were going to cheat, that their partner was going to cheat and that they just lived with it.

I didn't want that. I wanted a relationship, but it could wait until I got out. Or when I was done deploying for long months. I just didn't believe that any relationship could survive long separations, but here was Sam. She'd stayed true to her husband while he was training in Alaska. She'd been true to his memory long after his death. If there was ever a girl that could be true, maybe it was Sam. I pulled Sam up from her seat and tucked her into my side.

I hadn't lied to her when I said that I didn't cuddle, so having her warm body snug against mine without the urge to flee, when we weren't enjoying some post coital glow, was weird. A good weird, but it was definitely hitting different nerves and neurosensors in my brain. I liked it. There was something really relaxing and almost comforting just holding her as the waves of the water slapped gently against the boat. It was so good that I just drifted off to sleep.