If they only knew!They were interested if I was going to re-enlist. I said, "No, not even if I got another promotion." I had been in the sandbox too l...ong. We will always be at war in the sandbox. They agreed and gave me a list of numbers for help if I needed it when I got home and their personal contact numbers if I needed to talk to them.At noon we went out to parade grounds with the other 5000 or so soldiers that were being rotated out. My family and Betty's family were seated in the section. With my new sensitivity, and my emotional barriers down, I realized that Teddy and I seemed to have the student body pretty evenly split, when it came to who they sympathized with. I quietly took that as a moral victory.My answer found me during lunch, something I seldom ate at school, but which I had decided was the safest course for me today. I grabbed a slice of pizza and an orange from the food court and headed outside to eat, safely ensconced on a bench, and mercifully alone. Well, for a. "Father, why is the roof enclosed? Surely it would be nicer to have this open to the air?" Oh, yes, I agree. It was something I asked about, and I was told that originally it was open, but that the roof glass was added by my grandfather to stop helicopter owners from examining the contents of his harem."Then Elaheh noticed for the first time that there were a number of women there, all wearing silk dressing gowns in a variety of colours and all kneeling with their foreheads to the floor. She. She bit her lip as she remembered her friend. Anna was so full of life. They'd laughed so much the two of them. They seemed inseparable. They'd talked for hours. They'd whispered their secrets to each other. They created secrets. Ava touched her lips as she remembered her first kiss. Not from her belated husband. Not from one of the boys in her small community. She remembered the soft, gentle lips of Anna touching hers. She remembered their tongues touching carefully. Embracing. Melting. She.