Seeing Julia by Katherine Owen

L.A. with her. As you can imagine, you don’t say no to Kimberley Powers. She was the coolest girl at Hopkins. She was on her way to L.A. to meet up with a former classmate of ours, Bobby Turner. I definitely remembered him from two years ago.”
    I walk back over to the window and look out at the bleak winter day. I stare at my own reflection. This stranger stares back. Who am I now?
    “So, we boarded the plane for L.A., despite my normal distrust of people.” I glance back at the doctor and see his slight amusement at my comment. “I spent the majority of the flight filling her in on what had happened to me for the past few years. I even shared the finer details about my grandmother and her drinking and how I’d been little more than an indentured servant to her, while she waited to get her hands on my trust fund. That day. My eighteenth birthday.
    I’d been to the bank, cleaned out my account and shown up at Chicago O’Hare and all Kimmy said was, “Well, your double down secret is safe with me.”
    I expel a gratifying sigh, now, and allow myself to experience a little happiness at the memory of Kimberley and her solemn vow. My secrets have always been safe with her.
    “So we deplane. And, there’s Bobby, just inside the terminal at LAX. He’s leaning against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, wearing these black jeans and a white Polo shirt with the UCLA Bruins logo, a true golden boy. I think I actually shivered, when he shook my hand and said, “Nice to see you, again, Julia.” I’d been away from New Haven for a few years and the guy still remembered my name. I remember Kimberley looking at me funny and glancing down only to discover I was still holding Bobby Turner’s hand.”
    I laugh at the memory and the feeling it evokes. I think it surprises the good doctor. He gets this incredulous look on his face.
    “Somehow, with astounding ingenuity, Bobby manages to load all of our luggage in his white Porsche. The top was down and I sat in the middle, my bare legs straddling the stick shift. His hand was in constant motion, shifting the gears. I was trying to find air, while his hand was brushing against my inner thigh every few seconds.” I blush as I tell this part of the story and note Dr. Stevenson is still looking at me in veiled astonishment.
    “We arrive at this fabulous beach house he’s rented with Kimberley in Marina del Rey and I walk in with my suitcase and he takes it from me and says, “Your room is this way. Here, let me show you.” I smile over at the doctor. “My room was his room. Just like that, he loved me and I loved him.”
    I stop talking. It takes a few minutes to recover, to find enough detachment left inside of me to go on.
    “The three of us attended UCLA. He’s in the ROTC program and playing soldier on the weekends every so often and I didn’t pay any attention to this aspect of his life. He talked about law school and I talked about being a writer. Our life together was amazing and grand. Our future predetermined, like the stars in the galaxy. After graduation, we were going to get married right on the beach. We’d buy a house, have kids, he’d be a lawyer, I’d write.”
    My smile vanishes.
    “Then 9/11 happened and he talked about what he needed to do for his country and I just didn’t get it. I was busy planning our wedding on the beach at Marina del Rey and he was talking about Afghanistan and duty. So when he told me he’d made his decision, I thought, great he was ready to set a date. We’d been talking about keeping things simple and I was saying June at the same time he was saying my orders are for Afghanistan and he was leaving at the end of the January. He’d signed up to serve as second lieutenant in the U.S. Army. Not the Christmas present I hoped for.” I walk back from the windows and stand in the middle of the room and gaze at the good doctor. My breath comes less even, now.
    “So, we’re together, only I was in L.A. trying to