"It has been one year, exactly.  Did you remember that, Crim?" my best friend, Kenya, said to me.  We were on break from our photo shoot outside my mansion in Malibu.  To be precise, it isn't my mansion.  Well, it is now.  But, it had belonged to my fiance.  I silently walked into the house and went up the grand staircase.  Eventually, I wound up on the widow's walk.  Looking over the ocean, I remembered I was in this same spot two years ago.

Jacob and I were grade school sweethearts.  We were voted prom king and queen and best couple in high school.  Not just because we were both millionaires, but because we were truely the best (and longest lasting) couple.  After high school, Jacob went to West Point.  His parents did not want him in the military because of the fear of losing their only child, but Jacob wanted to be in the army.  They supported him, but not whole - heartedly.  

The day he left for his first duty, he proposed to me.  He told me we would get married after he came back from his first tour of duty.  I had only imagined the day that he proposed to me and the day that he left.  I never imagined those two events on the same day, though.  Of course, I waited faithfully for him to return.  He was supposed to come home in December, sometime around the holidays.  But, I will never forget, what happened on November 17th.  That one phone call changed everything.

Jacob left me everything after he was killed: his personal mansion his parents bought him when he was little, all of his money(which was a HUGE amount), and all of his items.  His parents got nothing, except a letter.  I had received a letter, too.

I walked down to the bedroom that we used to share.  I opened up a box that was in the bottom of the closet.  All of my memories of Jacob and I are in there.  Including the letter he wrote.  As I begin to read it, I start to cry.  Why haven't I listened to him?  I haven't even begun to move on in my life.  Jacob tells me to find a new man and move on.  I haven't even been close to recovery.  But, he is right.  Jacob always was.

Kenya came up the steps and gave me a hug.  She has been my best friend since I moved to California after the death of my parents.  She said to me "You should listen to Jacob, Crim.  You need to move on."  As Kenya walked back down the steps, I realized she and Jacob are right.  I put the picture sitting on the nightstand of Jacob and I from our high school graduation in the box.  I returned the box to its original place in the closet.

I walked back down the stairs with a new found confidence and a newly rediscovered want to be loved, again.