The Marine came home tonight.

Only I didn't see him.

I had talked to him on the phone almost every night this week. Instead of turning his phone in to his superiors at the end of his day off like he was supposed to, he held on to it, sending me text messages during class or calling me at night before he went to sleep. He had kept his promise and for that reason, my feelings developed even stronger for him this time. I returned to the thought that all of my initial inklings about him were correct--he was the one. I was going to marry him.

And it came up in our conversations. He asked me if I would marry him. He asked me if I would move to North Carolina to be with him. To which I answered yes.

He told me he would be home Wednesday. Then, he told me he would be home Thursday. Then, he would be home Friday at 2pm. Finally, I stopped asking when he would be home because it seemed that each time I asked, the date was later and later.  I was starting to wonder IF he was even coming home.

Friday, I eagerly waited for him to call or text message that he was home. When he finally text messaged me at 6pm, he was still on the bus. He would be here in a couple of hours. Once he was in Atlanta, we agreed that he should spend some time with his dad first and once his dad had fallen asleep, he would come see me. While he was visiting with his dad, I was vigorously cleaning my house, showering, and making sure my hair and makeup were perfect.

Showering twice in one day is unusual for me. I hate getting my hair sopping wet because it takes forever to blow dry it. As I was stepping over the tub out of the shower, the doubt crossed my mind--what if I'm doing all of this for nothing?

He called at 11:30pm. His dad was asleep. I gave him directions to the house. He said he would call once he got to my exit on the freeway. I figured I had 15 minutes to do one last touch up on my makeup--conveniently, my face had broken out that morning.

15 minutes passed. Maybe he made a wrong turn and had to backtrack. 30 minutes passed. Maybe he's lost. 45 minutes passed. Maybe his dad woke up and wanted to visit some more.

At one hour, he called. I was about to ask if he was lost, but it was quiet in the background. He wasn't in his car. Something didn't sound right in his voice so I braced myself for what was coming ...
"I lost my charge card."
"Oh ... is that a big deal?" Did he need it for gas? Borrow money. Use cash. Borrow another car. What was the problem here?
"Uh, yeah."
"Did you lose it at the house?"
"Maybe. I'm still looking for it ... ok?"
"Ok." I couldn't even hide my disappointment. I laid down on the couch now. I was tired and I no longer cared how my hair or my makeup looked. He wasn't coming.

And the longer I laid there, the angrier I got.  When we first met, he prepared me for physical separation.  Months and months of training, being stationed hundreds of miles away, months and months of deployment to Iraq.  So far, I've been able to handle that. 

It's this other type of separation that I can't deal with and I can't define.

Why didn't he stop at my house to say goodbye before he went to infantry training, like he said he would?  His excuse:  He doesn't like goodbyes.  He just wanted to be alone.  Fine, but I didn't even get a phone call to say he wasn't coming ...
Why didn't he write?  His excuse:  I didn't have time.  SOI was going to be easier than boot camp, he kept telling me.  He wrote me a couple of times while at boot camp.  I would get another letter from him even before I had a chance to answer the first so why no letters while at SOI?
Why didn't he visit or call at Thanksgiving?  His excuse:  He didn't get Thanksgiving off.  Really?  I have a hard time believing that the U.S. military does not get a national holiday off.  The previous time I talked to him, he was scheduled to get 72 hours off for Thanksgiving ...
What is up with this weird timetable issue?  Why does he never know what days he has off, what time he's getting in, what time he's coming over, etc.?  Here we are, 2:30am, almost three hours after he initially called me to say he was coming over, and I still haven't heard from him. Has he been looking for his credit card the entire 3 hours since I hung up the phone?  If I didn't leave within 15 minutes of the time I told a person I was leaving, I would have called by then ... not an hour later ...

I'll wait for you to come home from boot camp.  I'll wait for you to come home from training.  I'll wait for you to come home from Iraq.  But is it really necessary to make me wait like this?

After hearing so many excuses, it becomes difficult to believe anything a person says and that's the status I've achieved with the Marine.  Everything now is suspect.

And it hurts me (again) to have been wrong about something I felt so strongly about.  I felt that he was IT for me, and now, that feeling, the thing that I had felt most sure of my entire life, was wrong.  It's a horrible feeling.

Maybe he just doesn't like me.  His words don't say that.  But his actions do. 

So, why doesn't he just leave me alone then?