Well, my first concern was how were we going to afford my moving out. Angel was only a couple of months away from graduation, but she didn't have a job. What she got from the VA wouldn't cover much. She told me to just find a place, don't worry about her, if she and Levi needed money, she'd let me know. It seemed strange, but Angel had been handling all the finances since we got back to the States. I figured she knew what she was talking about.

I found a one bedroom apartment in a building near the "student slums" close to the University. It wasn't too old of a building. There were mostly students living there. (Okay, there was one drug dealer and a couple of hookers as well.) It wasn't too bad. It was cheap. And between Goodwill and the Salvation Army stores, I got it furnished pretty quick.

One of the first things I did after moving out was to change shifts at work. There was an opening on the second shift, the evening shift. I never really liked working 3 to midnight before, but I felt the change would help.

Change was definitely in the wind.

After I was in the apartment for about a month, Chrissy told me she was going to Arizona. Working at Dayton General wasn't working out. It wasn't what she hoped for. Chrissy was going to a Navajo reservation outside of Phoenix for a year. She felt she could do some good and it would give her some time to consider things. There wasn't much I could say. I knew the job in Dayton sucked. The one guy she had been dating was a jerk. I didn't want her to leave, but why should she stay?

About a week after Chrissy left for the West, I got the papers. Angel had filed for divorce. We hadn't exchanged a dozen words since she asked me to leave. "Incompatibility" and "Irreconcilable Differences" were the grounds.

I didn't want to fight.

My visitation schedule was fairly typical, every Wednesday, alternating weekends, alternating holidays. Angel threw in that I could ask to visit Levi anytime I wanted to, as long as I gave her 24 hours notice.

Sure, fine.

Nothing was ever mentioned about Helena, so I never knew whether Angel knew or not. It's seemed pretty pointless to confess at that point.

Summer had hardly begun and already I was having WAY too much fun.

I decided it was time to enjoy myself. Angel didn't ask for alimony or even much in child support, even though I had a good paycheck. Hell, it meant that for probably the first time in my life I had enough money to enjoy myself.

All I needed was someone to enjoy it with.

I ended up dating a number of blondes over the first few weeks after the divorce. I think one was a Barbie (or Bambi), one was named Buffy (I think), there were two named Cindi, one was Sharon. I'm not sure, there may have been a Niki and a Diana. I was going out with a few of them at the same time. Chrissy refers to this as my "Desperately Seeking Satin" phase.

(Actually, this was about the time I got the letter from "Reb" and found out Satin wasn't a blonde anymore.)

I saw Levi every Wednesday and every other weekend he stayed with me. I met Angel's boyfriend, Tony. I wanted to hate him, but he was a nice guy.

I really missed having Chrissy around. There was no one to talk to. Angel and I had stopped talking long ago and the blondes had very little to say.

Chrissy did write though. I got a letter every week, sometimes two. She even sent pictures.

I started thinking about Chrissy a lot more.

As Fall started, I registered as a full time student at UD, a journalism and creative writing major. I met Susan. Okay, she was another blonde, but seemed to be a little more down to earth. We went out a couple of times.

We both knew pretty quickly It wasn't going to work out, but she did introduced me to her sister, Alice. Susan was 25. Alice was 22.

Alice reminded me a lot of Chrissy. They didn't look alike at all, but Alice had Chrissy's sense of humor, her sense of the absurd. I liked Alice a lot. It was like dating Chrissy.

And THAT was the problem with Alice. She was so much like Chrissy that I missed Chrissy more. And if dating Alice seemed so comfortable, wouldn't REALLY being with Chrissy be better?

I'd never seriously considered a romance with Chrissy, but now I was seriously wondering why that was. She'd always been there for me. She'd always been the one to set me straight. Chrissy was always a lot of fun. She was cute. And I was pretty sure I loved her.