Wow...is anyone still gonna be reading this now?

So, here we go.

Entry 7:

"Why did you do it?"

That's a question that Claire asked me today when we were walking alongside the river. We had just had lunch at a restaurant and figured we'd walk it off.

I guess I should have figured it out when she had stopped talking for a while. We've only been hanging out for a couple of weeks, but already I've figured out that when she goes silent for longer than five minutes, it usually means something is on her mind.

I was still trying to pick a small chunk of bread out of my teeth, so I didn't answer her right away. I spent a minute or two picking the piece out of my two front teeth, then when I had it out I swallowed it.

"Why did I do what?" I asked.

"Why did you go to Central?"

And here I paused, my mouth open, not knowing what to say.

Now, that's a question I've never really had to answer. If you've read my first journal, and even the first couple of entries of this entry, you'll see that I've just written it off as me being the idiot that I have always been. At the time, I thought that was all I needed to say.

Because the truth is, I didn't really know why. I still don't. I just did it. I did it because high school was over, I didn't really have a plan for college or a job, all my friends were going away, and I didn't just want to stay home and be a nuisance to my family.

I told her that, and that the army just seemed like a good opportunity. "They were offering good career options. I figured it would help me get a job afterwards." I don't really know if that's the truth or not, but right then it was all I could think of to answer her with.

She just looks at me, but not in the "wow, you're stupid" look that I know I've gotten before. More like a sad look.

"Was it what you expected?"

I laughed, thinking of all that happened in three quarters of a year. All the guys I knew, the guys we lost.

"Definitely not," I answered.

"Do you regret it?"

Boy, was THAT the million dollar question. Did I regret going. How does one answer a question like that without coming off as pretentious? So I just said what I thought came naturally.

"I regret everything that happened," I said. "I regret that they happened the way they did. But I can't really say I regret going. That would just be wishful thinking."

She smiled at me and patted my arm. I felt a swarm of butterflies scurrying around in my stomach from the contact, though that may have also just been the soup we had. It tasted funny, what can I say?

Laying in bed that night, I thought of all my friends from the service. I thought of only the happy times, all the pranks me and Smokey pulled, all the alchemy Shadow used to tell me about, the time Regazzi and Squeaker put a turd wrapped in plastic at the bottom of Castillo's hole and didn't tell him about it until he had sat on it for ten minutes straight. I laughed a little at that memory, and then the laughter died when I remembered that all of those guys, save one or two, were dead.

As much as I try, I can't bring myself to regret going there. If I regret it, then everything that happened was for nothing. That's what my dad told me, the first night I was back. Regretting meant forgetting, and that world, and the people who died in that world, would have never existed. And that was not a fate that they deserved.

It's hard, though.

Too hard.

And I'm not entirely sure I can do it anymore...

Wow, it's been a really long time. Two years, I think? If you've been paying attention to my profile over the last two years, you'll have a slight idea of what's been going on with me. If not...just read it, I guess?

I'm going to really really really REALLY try to get back into this story and give it the attention it deserves. I honestly wonder if anyone out there will still give a rat's ass, but if you do...leave me some reviewing love?

So...yeah. Later...hopefully sooner than later, but you know.