She'd Never Return: Or Would She? — Bob Holt

Kayla, stood, holding the invitation to her class reunion It had been thirty years since she'd graduated from high school and not once, had she attended a reunion. Why attend this one? There wasn't any good reason except Brian Howard. They'd been sweethearts since fourth grade. It was mostly innocent until high school. That's when it began to get serious. Their bodies were changing and it wasn't going unnoticed by either. By the eleventh grade, he was proposing but she wanted no part of getting married right out of high school and having a family. She wanted to leave and see what was on the other side of the Duplin County line. Staying put the first two years out of high school, she attended James Sprunt in Kenansville before leaving to continue her education at ECU. When she told him that she was leaving, he threw a fit telling her that she had no business running off. She needed to marry him and stay put. She guessed that she got a little ugly towards him, maybe a lot. She was leaving and that was that. Everything was different in Greenville and soon after her arrival, she was swept off her feet by Jeff Harris from Opelika, Alabama. By Thanksgiving, he'd proposed and she'd accepted. The following spring, they were married and living in a townhouse. They still had another semester before graduating but money wasn't a problem with Jeff. Two years and two children later, Jeff's wondering eyes got him into trouble and Kayla divorced him saying that she was done with men. She's raise her two children without a man in her life and that's the way it remained for the next twenty-two years until Lynn came into her life sweeping her off her feet and opening up long pent-up desires for a man's love. It lasted for two years until an accident swept him away from her and she was alone again saying that she would wait for him. Now, another two years had slipped by and she was still alone and unloved. Maybe she'd go to the reunion, Brian Howard might be there. Had he married and like her, divorced? Maybe he'd never married? Maybe he was still waiting for her?