Work Text:
December 23, 1944
She sat at her vanity while applying her lipstick. She opened a drawer and saw the picture, the one of her and Buck at the beach the summer before the war started. Big smiles on their faces and not a care in the world.
She sent him the letter in October, letting him know it was over. She cared about him, loved him even, but it has been more than two years since they had seen each other. They’d been apart longer than they"d been together.
Los Angeles buzzed with servicemen, and it became harder and harder to turn down the men who asked her out to dinner, to the movies, to dances.
That"s where she was going tonight, a dance. Bill served in the First Motion Picture Unit. Buck would have hated that Bill went to USC, but no one could criticize him. He worked for a film studio before the war and was doing his part, the same as anybody.
Buck never wrote her back, but she didn"t think that meant anything. After all, a guy like him would be the envy of all the nurses, WACs, and village girls. He’d smile that easy smile at them and impress them with his dance skills. She"d gone dancing with Bill before, and he wasn"t a patch on Buck.
He was probably at a dance now, or a holiday party, or an early Christmas dinner. They wouldn"t have the officers stuck on the front so close to Christmas, would they? He"d be enjoying ham with all the trimmings and listening to some band the USO brought in for entertainment.
I"m sure he was relieved when he got the letter, she thought as she heard the doorbell ring.
After all, it was all for the best.