Life is a funny thing. Summer tried killing herself a few times after David was killed, even though she knew it was hopeless because in the end she never went through with it. But she could still see him. Her love. Her life. Her soon to be fiancée. She cursed her memory because she could never forget the details... Her last moments with him. David had always been so brave… to the point of stupidity, really. It's how he died. But Summer couldn't bring herself to be mad at him. She could be mad at the world, herself, the damn army, but not him. Never him. Oh Summer still had her family, but she couldn't cope with pasting on a smile everyday around them. So one day she just left without so much as a goodbye. She moved into a motel and used her college savings to support herself. She confined herself to that room, doing anything to keep the grief at bay. The only one she allowed to know where she was David's best friend Eric who was coming to visit her, Summer was excited as she possibly could be. That was the only thing that came down to it these days. The reason she was still breathing was for Eric. Their friendship was the only thing that kept her going, otherwise she was alone.

Summer had stayed in bed more often, more so recently since David's birthday was in two days and that morning it was no different when she heard a knock at her motel door. She stirred in her sleep and awoke when she heard the loud knocking again, her body shivered relentlessly as her teeth chattered against each other. She was confused for a moment as to why she was shivering so much, normally when she slept David wrapped her up completely in his arms. Then she smiled as she remembered falling asleep in his arms and reached across the bed to wake him up only to reach nothing but air.

Summer swiveled her head around to look for him but she found the room empty. That's when she remembered he was no longer with her. Summer sobbed quietly for a few minutes and got up grudgingly and answered the door. "Hello," she said with tears in her eyes as she swung it open. When she saw Eric standing outside the door it caused her to snap out of her teary state. "Oh, EJ I've missed you." She said softly rubbing the tears out of her eyes as she opened the door wider to let him in, for some unknown reason her heart clenched painfully, she immediately knew something was amiss and she felt her stomach drop into her calves when their eyes met briefly. She had no idea how Eric felt about her situation but at that point she didn't care, she wanted to know what was going on even though she knew it couldn't possibly be good. She walked into the room and plopped down on the bed across from Eric. She was biting her nails; something she never used to do, unless she was really, really shaken up about something but lately it had become a habit. She thought Eric had been acting kind of weird, so she decided to confront him. "Okay, what's going on?" she asked looking up at back six years and Eric was hopelessly in love with his best friend's girl. The cardinal rule of guy code was never to crush on your best friend's current or past girlfriend. Eric was committing both of those sins. David, his childhood best friend and Eric decided to join the U.S. Army their senior year.

They graduated and went straight to boot camp. Now while all this was happening, Eric promised David that if anything ever happened to him, that he would look out for Summer. Eric already knew Summer and David would end up married one day and a million babies. That was until that day of the shooting at Fort Hood. Eric witnessed it all, as he was lucky to be with stationed with David from the start but he wasn't so lucky to see his best friend lose his life at the hands of a psychotic therapist. David was just trying to be a hero though, its what he signed up for and he died as a hero. Eric tried to put that day behind him. He lost his battle buddy, his brother in arms and he lost a part of himself. He knew that Summer was having an unbearable hard time with losing David, and Eric tried to be there as much as he could but it was hard because he had a commitment to his country.

Getting his first deployment under his belt was difficult, especially because he was supposed be fighting alongside David and forward to 2010 and Eric was back in the states enjoying some rest and relaxation in Austin. It almost been 4 years since David's death and Summer still wasn't coping with it. Eric tried helping her as much as he could but he didn't seem to be getting through to her. All this while he was still madly in love with her. Eric didn't know how she could spend the past two years in a motel but she did, even though he offered to have her stay at his place so many times but she always refused. He hoped that with his news, that was going to change. His hand was against the door of her motel. "Summer, I'm going to be leaving on tour."Summer was staring at the wall to avoid eye contact. She broke away from the wall and searched Eric's eyes, looking for something, but wasn't sure what. Then she heard it. The only words she heard were "I'm leaving", and it was all she really needed to hear. All she really needed to know. "No, Eric." She got up off the bed, stood in front of him, and stared down at him. "You know what's being going on. You know what I've been through. Now you're telling me that you're going to leave me too!" She sobbed and backed away a few steps turning back to the bed and throwing herself on it not helping the tears that flowed down her she curled up on the bed she remembered why she cared about Eric. Although most thought him to be a tough no nonsense guy she knew better.

They talked about a lot of things and that just thinking about him lifted her spirits. Before him and David were deployed, Summer said she was proud of them and that she had never been so proud of anyone. They were doing a good thing helping their country like that. That all changed after David got killed. She had watched the news right after it happened and found out he had been fatally wounded. She had cried for days. Years if she wanted to be technical. Exactly one thousand four hundred and fifty four days, six hours, and thirty sever minutes later after it happened Eric had appeared at her door step and told her what she realized was her worse nightmare because now history was repeating itself and she couldn't do it again. All she had was him and nothing wrenching sobs tore through her body. Her boyfriend was gone and now his best friend would be too. Summer felt the walls closing in on her so she bolted from the bed and ran out the door. She ran until she was by the beach near the ocean. Her and Eric had often taken long walks out there early in the morning before anyone else was up. The day David was killed played in Summer's head. She tried to force it out but was only met with more memories. Her heart thudded violently in her chest. She saw her boyfriend's face in her mind and pictured him smiling, laughing. Anything but his last moments on earth. It wasn't spent with his friends and family it was spent trying to catch a shooter. At least Eric was there.

Her mind forced her through memory after memory. All more painful than the last…Sobs racked her body making Summer fall to the sand. She looked up and saw Eric standing there, of course he knew where she would run to. "Why? Why couldn't you have just stayed put? What were you thinking? Please don't leave. You can't leave, I need you. You can't go, there's got to be someway..." Her sobs shook her whole body and her voice broke. She was mad and she was heart broken and she was scared. She couldn't lose the only stable thing she had been able to maintain after David's death, she just couldn' knew his simple statement had created havoc in a matter of milliseconds. Looking up at her, his heart broke more listening to her. 'No, Eric.' It was like he exactly had a choice in the matter and he couldn't just go AWOL. It wasn't that he was leaving her because he wanted to anyways. He was just doing his duty to his country, fighting for his freedom. He put his head in his hands though and didn't know what to sat to Summer. This was one of the only times he ever found he couldn't cheer her as Eric was about to sit on the bed that Summer was laid out and sobbing on to try to talk to her, she got up and ran right out the door. He needed for her to stop running away from her problems and face them head on. She ran away from her family because she felt they didn't understand, and he followed her to Austin, he would follow her wherever she went. But now it had been long enough, the mourning had to stop.

Eric was sure David wouldn't want Summer to be doing this to herself; in fact Eric knew he wouldn't because David told him so. Flashback: David laying flat out on the ground, the bullet wracked through his chest, blood everywhere and Eric by his side, hold his head up, putting himself in danger to save his best friend. "Stay with me David, for Summer, she needs you, I need you." Eric tried to keep him responsive but he was fading out on him. Gasping for life, David looked up at Eric mumbling between coughs filled with blood. "Be with Summer..."Now Eric never told Summer this, it was too vivid in his mind for him to ever tell her for the fear she wouldn't be able to handle what happened. Eric got his best friends permission to make Summer happy again. David wouldn't want her to be with anyone else. It was just too bad that Summer didn't feel that way about Eric. He could handle it though because Eric had been waiting for Summer for a long time. He only got closer to her over the past few years and she was the only person to truly know him.

Eric ran to the beach that was Summer's favorite spot to be to clear her head. He knew her like a book and spotted her down the shore and sitting in the sand. He headed over there, walked so he wouldn't scare her and when she looked up and him he sat down and brought his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. "We have three months then I leave for training and I come home before being shipped off." He knew this wasn't what Summer wanted to hear. He tried finding a way out of going to Iraq and the only option he had, he would need Summer's help with. "I need to get married so I will have a better chance of not going into a combat zone." With Summer's instability over David's death, if they were married, he would have to within a phone's reach in case something happened to her. Because of the situation with David, the Army would probably let Eric stay somewhere safe for finally stopped crying but all she could do was sit there. Her whole world was gone forever. She was hurting and Eric leaving would make things so much worse. She knew he had been trying to get her to talk to him but she wouldn't. Until now, when he said there was only one option. Tears sprung to her eyes as Eric continued. Summer was looking at him with an unreadable expression on her face. She sat up, resting on her knees and cradled Eric's face in her hands. "Choose me. Marry me." Summer just collapsed into his arms. She needed him and he was not going to give up on her.

As she felt the warmth return to her body and the feeling of grief slowly slipping away. She knew that this was what it came down to and she was willing to marry him that day if it meant he would be closer to her. So she laid there in his arms, not ready to give up. She was not going to shut her family and friend's out for good she just couldn't deal with the woes of life anymore. Eric and Summer were sitting on the beach in their spot. The sun was shining and the ocean was glistening. Summer looked up at Eric and gave him a small smile. "I used to wonder what my purpose was in this life. I'm a reckless girl who would of cared less about my own life if it wasn't for you. I would of had nothing to live for. But you changed that. You followed me here when you didn't have to and I truly do need you Eric, you breath new life into me. So I will marry you if it means you get to stay closer to me. You have made life bearable and I will make you happy. I don't ever want to know a day that you're not in. I know this won't be easy but whether we are in the same bed or not it doesn't matter..." She smiled though her tears. Summer had a hard time expressing so this was certainly a change for Summer finally acknowledged his presence, he wrapped his arms tight around her and laid back in the sand. "I wouldn't choose anyone but you Summer."

Summer knew this, especially since she knew he was head over heels in love with her and wouldn't let anything happen to her. Finally, she was letting him in. Not that she hasn't before but this was on a much more deeper level. Feeling a sigh of relief kind of, Eric kept his grip on Summer, never wanting to let go of her. She was his whether she wanted to admit it or even like it. There was no choice in the matter. However, their relationship was strictly friends, even though they did have sex one night they got really drunk. A drunk mind speaks a sober heart right? Maybe Summer really did have feelings for Eric, they were just hidden under all the pain. Eric was ready to take all of her pain away. Eric was still so shocked she was just opening up to him like this, usually he had to ease it out of her slowly, make Summer trust him. He relaxed his arms around her and wiped her tears away. "There's another condition though..." He knew she wasn't going to like it but it was the only way to keep him safe. "Your going to have to talk to someone." He didn't add the about David part, it wasn't the right time for it. "If your okay with that then let's just go and get married right now. We will fly to Vegas if we have to." It wasn't like he didn't already have a ring picked out for her either because he did, he had been thinking about this for awhile but he never had the balls or the circumstance to go through with it.