“The summer I graduated. The summer he graduated,” Aldo added. “You were at a bonfire, and I talked to you. Glenn didn’t like it. He pulled me aside, tried to be a big man and threaten me for talking to ‘his woman.’”

Gloria swallowed hard. She remembered the bonfire. She hadn’t known what had set him off. But she remembered talking to Aldo. A quick “Hey, how’s it going?”

“It was innocent,” she said quietly.

“Not for me, Gloria. It was never innocent for me. I wanted you, and he could see it.”

“Aldo—”

“He told me he didn’t like me talking to his woman. I told him I didn’t like the way he was treating you. We got into a shoving match. Luke and Linc broke it up fast.”

“I had no idea.”

“He dragged you out of there by your arm.” Aldo’s voice was dangerous. “I made a point to run into you the next day, and you had a black eye. You said you fell at the bonfire.”

Gloria couldn’t look him in the eye. She stared down at her hands resting in her lap. It had been the first of many, many lies she’d told.

“You swore you were fine, laughed it off. But I could see that part of that sparkle, part of that shine from the spotlight, was already gone. He was already taking pieces of you.”

She closed her eyes. “You tried to get me to break up with him. Told me he was trouble. Then I pretended like it was a joke, and I laughed.”

“He hit you because of me. You got hurt because of me.”

The words poured out of him like water over Niagara Falls. They couldn’t stop, even if Gloria wasn’t ready to hear them. “I enlisted the next day.”

“Oh my God, Aldo!”

“Luke had been talking about it, and I hadn’t decided. But I knew if I didn’t get away, I’d be the reason you got hurt again, and I couldn’t live with that, Glo. So I enlisted, and I walked into the first tattoo parlor I could find in the phone book.”

“It’s the serenity prayer, isn’t it?” Gloria asked. “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I can’t change?”

He nodded.

“You had to accept that you couldn’t change me.” The man had marked his skin and enlisted in the military because of feelings he had for her that she’d never known about. He’d carried the burden of blame for something he had no responsibility in.

Had she left Glenn that first time, their story could have been completely different. The Gloria that Left Glenn could have still been the Gloria that Ended Up with Aldo.

“I took every training, every assignment. I went to college. All just to get away from here. But I kept coming home. And I kept hoping.”