August 1942 – Camp Toccoa, Georgia

"Staying!"

"Going!"

"Staying!"

"Going! You have no business being here!"

"Staying! And I had to jump through more hoops than you did to get here! Besides, my parents are gone. I've got nowhere else to go!"

"I know about your parents, Katie-Lynn, and I'm sorry. But take your ass back to Oregon and find a guy who'll marry you. Go have babies or something!"

I was incredulous. "Don, I'm staying and there is not a damned thing that you can do about it. I'll stay out of your way, and you stay the hell out of mine!"

Slowly, it occurred to both of us that the room was filled with other people. Guys were either sitting on their bunks or leaned against the wall, heads swiveling like they were watching a tennis match, as Don Malarkey and I screamed in the middle of the room.

We glared at each other, still breathing hard from the yelling, and after a moment of silence, George Luz spoke up with his soon-to-be-infamous comedic timing.

"You boys get the feeling we're missing something?

Perhaps I should offer some background. My name is Katie-Lynn James. I'm 18 years old, and I'm training with Easy Company at Camp Toccoa. Don't ask me how I wound up here. Just let me say that it involved the death of my parents in a car accident, and the fact that my godfather was a powerful man who had a soft spot for my pleading blue eyes.

Don Malarkey and I had grown up next door to each other. I was an only child, and a bit of a tomboy. He was three years older, but I followed him around incessantly. He never seemed to mind, even in high school, when he the star point guard on the basketball team and I was just a gawky, nervous freshman. He treated me like a kid sister.

I probably should admit that, by that time, I was crazy about him. I'm sure that he knew, although I did my best, I thought, to be discreet.

Don was my first kiss that freshman year. It was after a dance, and he had seen me safely to my door.

"I'm not used to seeing you in a dress, Katie-Lynn. You look really pretty."

I think I blushed from head to toe at the compliment. I looked up at him to say "thank you" at the same time he leaned to kiss my forehead, his customary good night gesture to me when he was in a good mood. Our lips met accidentally, but neither of us pulled back right away. When we did, he whispered a surprised "good night," and crossed the yard to his house.

We never spoke of it again, but I thought I finally understood what all of those love songs were about. Two years passed quickly, and before I knew it, Don had graduated and moved out of the house. We stayed close for a while, but by the time I graduated and my parents died, he had started college and met a girl who was none too fond of his childhood pal.

Her name was Anne, and she was the manipulative type, using his feelings to drive a wedge between us. She used my hurt and anger over the growing distance between us to convince him that I was jealous of her, and that I just didn't want him to be happy. He bought into it, and by the time that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, I hadn't seen or spoken to him since my parents' funeral, six months before.

I had no idea that Don had spoken with my godfather after having trouble enlisting, or that, with his help, he had volunteered as a paratrooper. As for myself, I'd been working on my godfather for months when he finally made the phone call that brought me to Toccoa. Later, I would ask him if he had a hand in the two of us being assigned to Easy together, but he never gave me a straight answer.

Sufficed to say that, standing in formation in the humid Georgia summer while our new CO yelled over something idiotic, the last person I expected to see was Don Malarkey. Clearly, the feeling was mutual. We barely made it back inside the barracks after being dismissed before the fight began.

Luz was still waiting for an answer when we were interrupted by mail call. Don was handed a letter and I smirked. It reeked of some overpriced perfume and had lipstick over the seal, and I knew exactly who it was from. His eyes snapped up at the sound and he resumed glaring at me.

"What? Are you jealous? Shouldn't you be home in a kitchen, writing love letters to your own fiancé instead of here, looking like a little boy, as per usual, and giving me shit about mine?"

A bayonet went through my heart.

"Your what?"

"You heard me."

"No, I'm not sure that I did."

"My fiancé," he sniped, drawing the word out slowly. "I proposed to Anne before I left."

I stared at him blankly, then walked over to my bunk in the farthest corner of the room and laid down, trying to shut myself off from the world.

Shocked that I had given up on the fight so quickly, he ventured, "What? No more wiseass comments?"

"Just leave me the fuck alone, Malarkey."