Never Coming Home I took the letter and triangularly folded flag out of the officer's hands numbly. How could this be possible? He grabbed my hands and placed them around his neck before lowering his to rest against the small of my back, smiling as we twirled joyfully in circles to the beat of the song. My body was pressed tightly against his as we moved gracefully across the large dance floor, his emerald green eyes searching my dark chocolate brown ones behind his shaggy, chin length black hair. Tears mixed with my black eyeliner rolled down my face like a river, only to fall on the ground and explode into tiny fragments of what it once was. I sniffed as I slowly opened the letter and began to read it, the letters in his beautiful, slanted, cursive handwriting that he thought must be the ugliest in the world, but I beg to differ. He pulled me closer to him as the song slowed down, and we stayed that way for almost an hour until the dance was over and we were sent home. We were only 16 years old. I could hear the officer speaking, but I couldn't hear the words. I could see his mouth moving when I looked up at him blankly, but I could not comprehend that he was speaking. I bit my bottom lip to hold back a scream. Once more, my 19 year old fiance reminded me why he had to go off to war, then he smiled and kissed me, promising that he would return in time to see our baby girl, our own little princess. Then, as if to prove his point, he kissed my stomach. In a final goodbye, he hugged me tightly and held me there for a moment, then, without another word, he let go and set off on the plane headed to afghanistan. Or at least, I think it was afghanistan... I hugged the flag close to my chest, as close as humanely possible, the letter squished between my chest and the flag, my head bent forward as I cried, letting the tears fall freely down my face. "He said that he would come back..." I thought.