1. Our 40th Reunion Part One


    Date: 9/25/2023, Categories: Love Stories, Author: JdRobbins

    The world seemed in never-ending turmoil as the decade of the 60's drew close. Vietnam was an ongoing war, and the peace movement was in full swing. Woodstock was fresh in everyone's memory, providing our generation with the hope that as we graduated high school, we could affect change in a world of unchanging politicians and nineteenth-century morals our parents had grown up adhering to and tried to force on our generation.
    
    After receiving the diplomas, we'd worked twelve long years for, promises to stay in touch and never forget our time together abound. Each of us knew there would be promises un-kept as we headed off, some to secondary schools, others to the steamy jungles of Southeast Asia, and a few to the great white north of Canada to avoid being drafted.
    
    Before leaving commencement, I made it a point to find Samantha, the one person I wanted to keep in contact with. We had been close friends all through high school. I'd rescued her more than once on those occasions when she'd had too much to drink or needed to be told that her current boyfriend wasn't using her, even though I always felt they had. We never had intimate moments, not that I wouldn't have welcomed them with all my heart. I'd had a crush on Sam since I first met her in the seventh grade.
    
    As I approached Sam, her wide smile warmed my youthful heart.
    
    "Congratulations, Paul," She beamed, giving me a hug that allowed me to feel her soft body against mine.
    
    Sam was thin; her breasts, while ...
    ... small, were very perky. She had caught me more than once as I'd stared at them when I happened to see her at the pool wearing a sexy string bikini. Her long, thin legs were often covered by denim, but when she wore a skirt, I told her how great she looked.
    
    Holding her close to me, I whispered in her ear. "We made it."
    
    Sam leaned back so she could look at me but kept her hips pressed against mine. "Thank you so much. I wouldn't be here if it weren't for you." Her sparkling eyes and broad smile speaking volumes to me. We both knew what she meant. During the summer between our junior and senior years, Sam had gotten pregnant as a result of a drunken weekend with one of my rivals for her attention.
    
    I'd convinced her to have an abortion instead of moving to a distant city to give birth to an unwanted child while staying with her aunt. I'd told her at the time that she couldn't give up her dream of becoming a registered nurse and let herself be tied down to an unwanted baby. But I'd lied to Sam. My real reason was so she would still be in the same town and at the same school I was in. In my selfish way, I held hope that somehow, Sam and I would be together.
    
    Weeks earlier, she'd told me that she had been accepted at a nursing school in a city beyond driving distance, and I knew that I only had a short time to make her realize how much I cared for her.
    
    "When do you leave for school?" I asked.
    
    "Day after tomorrow," Sam replied.
    
    Somehow, I'd put the idea out of my mind ...
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