A dry wind howled through the outskirts of Tucson as she walked in the shadows towards the bank. It was foolish to be out at noon during this heat, she knew that, but it was a last minute thing, and she needed the money. Rebecca Fielding walked as briskly as she could with the August sun’s brutal rays pounding down around her. She wiped the sweat from her brow and took a swig of water from her water bottle.
She was two blocks away from the bank when she heard quickly pounding footsteps coming up behind her, one’s that seemed way too familiar for her current surroundings. Realizing what was probably coming next, she closed her eyes. “Oh no, oh please God no,” she thought, and turned; a second later 135 pounds of high energy and body mass rammed into her.
“Rebecca!” A voice squealed joyfully.
“Oof!” She huffed, stumbling back several steps before falling onto her butt. Her friend and unofficially adopted sister, April Caulden, smiled at her laughingly and offered her hand, “How kind of you.” Rebecca said dryly, glaring at her most beloved friend before grasping her right forearm and pulling herself up.
“Well, you know how I am: ever kind and caring.”
“Right… And that’s why you just knocked me to the ground.” She said, her voice dripping sarcasm.
“Exactly!” April grinned at her widely. Because she couldn’t help it, Rebecca returned the smile.
“It’s good to see you again. How’d you find me out in Arizona?” She and her friend started walking in a familiar pattern, side-by-side, April on the left, Rebecca on the right. It was as if they had never spent the last two years apart, with April out in California.
“Oh, you know, it wasn’t that hard. I figured I’d just do a little shopping in the area until I spotted you!” She responded brightly. Rebecca’s curiosity perked up a bit at the shopping comment, but she held it in check for the moment.
“Hah! Funny. I really doubt that you just decided to go shopping in the one place I happened to be in all of Arizona, April. I think you called my mother and had her tell you where I was.”
“Mhm, I sure did.” She said brightly.
“I thought so. Now bearing that in mind, how’d you find me here?”
“That part was pure luck.” Rebecca nodded and checked her watch again.
“You said you went shopping, what interesting objects did you get this time?” She finally allowed herself to observe the innocuous paper bag swinging from April’s arm. But knowing April, there could be damn near anything in there.
“Just some jewelry. I found the cutest little shop on the corner of some street or another.” Rebecca rolled her eyes again, something that became a constant occurrence when she was with her figurative little sister. It was just like April to pay no attention at all to street signs. There was a long moment of silence while they continued walking.
“Well?” She prompted.
“Well what?” April asked. Once more, Rebecca rolled her eyes.
“We-ell” She continued, breaking the word into two syllables, “are you going to show me the jewelry or not!?” As soon as she said that April’s eyes widened in a typical ‘Oh!’ moment for her.
“Uhm…yeah, sure, one second.” She stopped and fished in the bag. While her friend searched, Rebecca took a moment to look around. Her life had taken so many unexpected and wonderful turns; this latest development was an unwanted intrusion upon her happiness. With her fiancé having to leave the country just after proposing, and her father in the hospital for a recent heart attack, life was quickly taking a turn for the worse. She shook her head.
“Ah-hah!” April crowed, pulling out something. Her cry of victory jerked Rebecca out of her brooding before it could officially begin, and she said a silent thanks to God for that.
April was fiddling with the item pulled from the bag for what seemed an eternity. Rebecca couldn’t see because April’s back was towards her. She tapped her foot impatiently.
“April, I don’t have X-ray vision, turn around and let me see!”
“Alright, alright, don’t get ****.” She turned, and in her hands were two long, oh so very long, Peacock feather earrings. April held them up to her ears and grinned again.
“What do you think?” She asked. Rebecca stared at her for a long moment before shaking her head once again.
“You...are hopeless.”
“What?” she asked, taking them away from her ears to examine them.
“Well, first off, it took you that long to find something that big, in a bag that small?” Her voice went up at the end, making the statement into a question, “And second of all April darling, you don’t have pierced ears any more. “ April chuckled, and pushed her blood red hair back behind her ears to reveal twin loops dangling from her lobes. Rebecca was surprised; April had recently let the holes close up because she’d decided she didn’t want any more holes in her body; other than what evolution had already given her that is.
“You got them re-pierced.” She observed.
“Yup!” she said cheerfully. They had stopped walking during all this, and Rebecca checked her watch. It was almost twelve thirty in the afternoon now; the bank would close for Sunday in about half an hour.
“So…” Rebecca began taking a preparatory breath, “speaking of jewelry…” She twitched her hand a little and something sparkling caught April’s eye. She made a grab for Rebecca’s left hand. On her finger a diamond in a plain silver wedding-band glistened in the sunlight.
“He proposed?” April shrieked. She looked up at Rebecca, who was a good two inches taller, and smiled. Rebecca grinned back.
“He did!”
“When?” She demanded to know.
“About a week ago.”
“And you didn’t call me?!” April smacked Rebecca on the arm…Hard.
“Ouch!” She said, rubbing her shoulder. “I was gunna call; I just haven’t gotten around to it.”
“Yeah sure,” April said, irritated.
“I’ve been a little preoccupied…” Rebecca’s eyes darkened a little with…April peered closer… was that worry? The look passed, and April gave a mental shrug, brushing it off as nerves on her friend’s part. “Anyway…I was planning on calling at the end of the week to ask you to come.”
“Are you kidding?” April said her tone disbelieving.
“Nope, I need you to be there April.”
“Sure, ok. I’ll do it. I meant ‘are you kidding?’ as in ‘I can’t believe you even had to ask’. I thought it would have been a given!”
“Yeah well, I was hoping you’d be my maid of honor?”
“But what about your sisters? Won’t they be mad?”
“Nah, I told them I didn’t want to have to choose between them.” She smiled.
“Alright then. I’d love to do the job. By the way…Where is Tom?” Rebecca looked out across the street as her stomach clutched.
“Overseas.”
“So I take it he’s still in the military then?” April asked.
“Yeah, for a few more years at the very least.”
“So, wait…If he’s over seas how did he propose? Via e-mail?” She laughed.
“No! He left two days ago.”
“Why’s he going, and for how long will he be gone?”
“He didn’t say much about the why, and after living with my brother with his military intelligence career, I learned one thing: if they want to tell you, or if they even can, they will.” She shrugged her shoulders.
“Where is he now?” Rebecca faltered a bit in her step, as if the information of where he was really bothered her.
“…He’s in Afghanistan for the next year and a half.” April watched as her friend’s eyes dulled, a physical sign she knew very well, which meant her closest friend was blocking out emotions she did not want to feel just now.
They had started walking again and reached the Bank.
“Why don’t you go back to that shop you found? I know the one. There are only so many shops around here ‘out there’ enough to sell peacock feather earrings. Unless you’d rather come in and get some money with me?” Rebecca laughed a little.
April smiled, “I’m good on money right now. So I’ll see you there in about…twenty minutes?”
“Yeah, sure.” They hugged each other for a moment and then went their separate ways. Rebecca waited for April to walk out of sight, then turned and went into the building. The doors whooshed back in a smooth automatic movement, and the blast of icy cool air hit her face with a refreshing effect. She sighed in relief and went over to the counter.
Fifteen minutes later, after dealing with a clerk who decided to be fresh with her, she walked out with a wallet filled with ten’s and twenty’s. She sighed and looked out across the street, preparing to cross and head over to the store that April was in just down the road, when something caught her eye and she stopped cold.
“It can’t be…” She murmured to herself. Across the street stood a man who appeared to be in his late twenties, around her age, actually. He had dark black hair that had been dyed many times, and his lip was pierced by a large ring. He stood at over 6 foot 5, and wore all black. His face was ragged and tired looking, and he held a cigarette in his left hand. All in all, he did not mesh with the bright surroundings.
She must have stood there staring at him for a good five minutes, because when she finally snapped out of her trance, he had finished his cigarette and was walking over to her.
“Justin?” She blurted, her mouth dropping open. He was half way to her when she dropped the stuff in her hand and bolted.
He watched her run with a surprised look on his face before bending to pick up her wallet, kicking the water bottle away from him. He flipped it open, read the address, and started walking towards his car.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

“Rebecca!” The voice calling her name barely registered in her mind, but she realized it was April and almost stopped, checking the motion at the last minute. She blew past her friend and kept on running as if the demons of Hell were on her heels. Soon her lungs were burning and her legs felt like jelly, but she just couldn’t stop.
Perhaps she felt that if she ran long enough, she could outrun any and all thoughts of the ghost that just came back from her past. And for a while that’s exactly what she did. It became a thoughtless rhythm; Step, breath, step, breath, lines on the pavement, step, and breath. After a while she left the city behind, and was running out into the desert. The shock of that finally had her stopping.
Where was she? Did she know this place? Yes, of course she did. She had run a full five miles away from the bank without stopping. Sweat was pouring off of her in rivers, and her throat was so dry it was painful. She needed a place to rest and get out of the sun. It was a miracle she hadn’t collapsed from heat stroke or dehydration.
Spotting a patch of shade beneath a large Joshua tree, she hurriedly sat down and leaned up against the trunk, sighing. Now that she had stopped running, all the thoughts she had tried to leave behind came flooding back.
Justin was here in Arizona.
What was he doing here? She hadn’t heard from him since high school. Not one word! What the Hell was he doing here? The last she’d heard from her old friends, he’d been living in some rundown apartment in Chicago. Her friend Melanie had told her so! Why was he here?
Rebecca took three steadying breaths and looked around her. Did he come with April, and she just hadn’t told her? No, that’s not it. April wouldn’t do that to her, and besides, Justin never even met April. She put her face in her hands for a moment. Seeing her first Love for the first time in nearly…oh Lord, had it really been ten years since she’d last seen his face?
“Good God…” she murmured to the wind. What was she going to do? First the love of her life goes off overseas, and now Justin comes back from the metaphorical dead. This can’t be happening! Rebecca sighed and looked up again. Well, first things first, she thought. She had to get home and get water before she passes out. Then she’d think about Justin again.
“What a stupid move,” She muttered “Running out here like this. Gah!” She exclaimed in her habit of turning sounds into words. Rebecca stood up and dusted herself off. Her head spun.
“On second thought…” She whispered, placing a hand to her forehead and sitting back down, “Maybe I should just call April.” She pulled out her cell phone and dialed her best friend’s number. April picked up on the second ring.
“Rebecca, where are you!? You tore out of here like you’d just saw someone shot!”
“Not exactly April. Look I’m kind of in a bad spot right now. Can you come and get me?”
“Of course, but where are you?”
“Just outside of town. I can see the road from here.”
“Did you run that far?”
“Yeah.”
“Without stopping?”
“Yeah.”
“And no water to speak of?”
“Yeah…”
“And no way back?”
“Yeah.”
“And what about your money?”
“Dropped my wallet somewhere along the way.”
“…You idiot. That’s something I would do, not you.”
“So can you come and get me? I’d walk back, but I’m more than a little dizzy. I think I might need the hospital by the time you get here.”
“I’m on my way.”
“Thanks April.” Rebecca hung up and leaned her head back against the trunk again, watching the forget-me-not blue sky until she fell asleep.

Twenty minutes later she was shaken awake by a very worried April.
“Rebecca? Rebecca!” She cracked open her eyes, blinking away the gritty feeling.
“Wha-? Oh…hey.” She smiled weakly. “You came. Help me up will you? I can’t stand on my own.” April put her arm around Rebecca and half lifted and held her up as she got her feet under her. “Thanks.” She smiled again as April led her to her waiting car.
“You still want the hospital?” She asked. Rebecca considered it for a moment.
“No. I should be ok. Just take me home please.”
“Where is your home exactly?”
Several thousand miles away in Afghanistan, she thought. “Just drive, I’ll tell you where to turn.”