The World of Steve Harrison

[Steve Harrison]

I am familiar with writing journals as I've done it since high school. I'll probably edit this and add to it regularly. I'll start with a part of my profile ...

Steve Harrison in Brief

Steve Harrison In Brief


Parents: Wayne and Nicole Harrison
Siblings: Deanna Harris (half-sister)
Children: Stephanie Hall
Birthday: November 22nd1982
Hometown: Oakwood California
Schooling: Redwood School District. Clements Elementary grades 1-6, Mokelumne Jr High grades 7-9, Oakwood High grades 10-12. Graduated Class of 2001
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Dirty Blonde
Height: 6' 0"
Weight: 202 Lb
Complexion: Fair-shinned
Physique: Lean and muscular
Personality: Mellow and outgoing. He gets along with most everyone as long as they are nice.
Mannerisms: Steve is a flirt. It seems he does it without knowing sometimes.
Likes: Sports, Cars, Girls, Music, Sex, Acting, Cheeseburgers, Tacos, Exercise, Beer, Weed
Passions: Acting, writing stories and stage plays, restoring old cars
Doesn't like: Dishonest people, bad army officers and nocoms, suck-ups, cliques
Regrets: Being such a cad in high school. Steve has a daughter and hates to think about her in high school running into high school guys like he was.
Current Job: COO of Harrison Steel, a division of Harrison Construction Holdings.
Former Jobs: Barista, Landscaper, Office assistant at Harrison Steel Holdings, Officer in the U.S. Army.
Happiest Memory: Getting to meet my daughter Stephanie for the first time, and seeing her mother Kath again.
Saddest Memory: When his cousin was killed as they were almost like brothers.
Cars: Blue 1970 Pontiac GTO. 1941 Chevrolet Business Coupe, 1941 Chevy Pickup, 1959 Ford Fairlane Galaxie 500

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _



Life & Times

Biography...

Born and raised in the town of Oakwood California about 40 miles northeast of Stockton and 13 miles roughly due east of Lodi near the Camanche Reservoir. His parents were Wayne Harrison and Nicole Daynes. Harrison Construction was started by his great grandfather and his grandfather built it into a massive conglomerate with divisions in electrical, steel, and concrete. He never wanted for anything, and though his dad and mom didn't always get along or were faithful to each other, they stayed together. He wasn't sure how they would get on when he left home for the army.

Because of the promiscuity of both his mom and his dad; both having multiple affairs through his life, Steve learned a distorted view on sex and relationships while growing up. It was likely a reason he was such a cad in high school. He went out with several girls through his junior and senior years. He thought he loved one of his childhood sweethearts, Scarlett Heart, but she was a mess, and she left school around the Christmas break taking up with a biker in the Devils Advocates club. Steve guessed it was because she could get easy fixes of heroin from them.

After he graduated from Oakwood High School, he went into the U.S. Army. He attended basic and jump school, and then was enrolled into Officer Cadet School. When he graduated, he was assigned to the 1st Platoon - Fox Company - 2nd Battalion - 7th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and saw combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. During his time in Afghanistan, he re-connected with someone he knew and was fond of in High School.... his English teacher his senior year, Katherine Hall. She helped him with his stage-play scripts, and one evening events led to them making love. It was truly dangerous for Miss Hall and they knew it was wrong, but it happened anyway. Miss Hall got pregnant from their night of unprotected sex, and Stephanie was born.

When Steve was wounded by an IED, he was given leave and sent to Los Angeles to undergo some psychological tests, and he would attend a memorial for Private Bennet who was killed at the time Steve was wounded. He also would see Katherine Hall and meet his daughter Stephanie for the first time.

Steve was cleared for duty after several weeks and he returned to his unit at the base in Kandahar.

(More to be added)

 

[Steve Harrison]

Steve Harrison's School Years

Clements Elementary School

Steve attended Clements Elementary from the years 1989 to 1995 for 1st to 6th grades.
Story to come.

Mokelumne Jr High

Steve attended Mokelumme Junior High from the years 1995 to 1998 for his 7th, 8th, & 9th grades.
Story to come.

Oakwood High School

Steve attended Oakwood High School from the years 1998 to 2001 for his 10th, 11th, & 12th grades. Story to come.

Oakwood High 2001 Annual

Steve's Annual
Steve had a lot of signatures and he also made notes about some of the students... mostly about the girls.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

The Carter Twins

Aiden and Alex Carter
Class of 2001 - Twin Brothers - We were on the track team our senior year. They were excellent swimmers as well.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _


Betty and Bonnie Carter
Oakwood High Swim Team. They were Class of 2004 and are Aiden and Alex's little twin sisters

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Kaia Clarke

Kaia Clarke

Kaia and I would get stoned regularly in the parking lot at lunch. We would sometimes cut school and go out driving, and we fucked one time at lunch in Darrell's van.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Amber Diaz

Amber Diaz

She was an on again off again on again off again on again off again girlfriend.
She was possessive and had a jealous streak a mile wide with some explosive anger issues to accompany it.
She was very good in bed though.

... so was her mother Jessica Diaz. Amber's mom was hot for her age and was quite wild when she was drunk. A couple times when I stopped by to see Amber and neither Amber or her husband was home, Jessica would usually be all wined up and would come on to me. She knew how to wear her silky nightgowns and I wasn't going to tell her I wasnt interested.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Jenna Garcia

Jenna Garcia - Class of 2003 - Teenage mom of two. I ran into Jenna at the grocery store. Me and a friend were there trying to buy beer when she came up the aisle with her twin infant daughters. We had seen Jenna in the halls but we didn't know she was a mother. A bet came along that I couldn’t sleep with her that night, and so I went to work.

I spent the night with her, and the sex was amazing. Now I would have just cashed in on the bet the next day at school but some asswipes thought they would put the pressure on Jenna and get her to fuck them too. I stepped in and took one in the jaw defending her, and Jenna left school for the day. I ended up going back to her place to make amends. The funny thing was I became infatuated with her and started to feel remorse because of my loose ways.

We ended up dating toward the end of the year and she came to live in my parent’s guest house before I left for the army. She was the one who I called and write to while in the army, and she was the one I would see when I came home on leave. She stuck with me and stayed true through all the long years, and it was only after I got out of the army did I consider marrying her and adopting Amber and River.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Scarlett Heart

Scarlett Heart

The Wasted Girl. She was a childhood friend and we went through school together. Little did I know what was going on at her house. In high school she had a serious addiction to heroin, ecstasy, booze, and sex. She was also a talented model and singer and was doing quite well with both of those careers. Her senior year she hooked up with some musician, and she would party with the local chapter of SAMCRO. I heard she was going to marry some fashion designer and she moved to Europe. I heard she OD’d a year later.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Anna Hernandez

Anna Hernandez

What a Sexy Hispanic Babe! When I met her I thought she was my girlfriend-of-the-moment Amber Diaz once at a party. Was I pleasantly surprised when dawn came!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Allison Kaye

Allison - As crazy as this girl was, she was the proverbial loose cannon. You never knew who was going to show up on any given day. Still, we had a few good times together.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Darrell Sanders

Darrell Sanders
Artist, musician, and resident stoner. He could always get the best weed.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Jessica Saraiva

Jessica Saraiva
Met her the first day of senior year on orientation day. She was new to Oakwood and I showed her around. We dated on and off through the year and we were Oakwood High 2001 Homecoming King & Queen.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Sabrina 'Bree' Walker

Bree was one of the cheerleaders and came to Oakwood at the beginning of 2nd semester. It was soon rumored around school that her goal was to sleep with every guy in the class of 2001 despite being Darrell's girlfriend. All I know is he did a threesome with me and another guy in the locker room after track practice. She drained us both. and she still wanted more. An insatiable nymphomaniac!

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Katherine Hall

Katherine Hall
She was my English teacher who helped me become a better writer. She supported me in my decision to drop football and concentrate on Drama and my stage acting and most of all, my stage play writing. She was a good teacher, and she was quite attractive!

She was only in her second year, and she was about ten years older than me. To this day I do not know how I came to be at her house that night. I did find myself in her bed, making sweet love to her for hours. She was an intense woman when she freed herself of the boundaries of the teacher-student relationship. It seemed we couldn't get enough of each other, and she got me off like a firehose.

By the time graduation came around she was around six months pregnant with my baby. I went to see her after graduation and before I went into the army, and we made love again with our child in her womb between us. I left the next day and was inducted, and Katherine set out to make a new life for herself. She changed her number and moved to another city somewhere, and though I tried to find her, her tracks were well and truly erased and I came to the realization I may never hear from her again. I always wondered if our child was a boy or a girl.

 

[Steve Harrison]

The Army Years

Once graduation from Oakwood High was done and all the partying done, people started to drift away. Steve was going head off to San Francisco to catch his flight to Atlanta and basic training. He had one more person to visit before he left, and that was his English teacher throughout his senior year, Katherine Hall. She was six months pregnant with his child, but only the two of them knew that. Steve didn’t know if he would ever see her again, so he came by her house to say goodbye.

Having visited her, it was clear that Katherine was going somewhere. The house had changed its décor some and there were bags packed. Even though they spent the night together, Kath never let on to him where she was going. The next morning Steve left her house to stop by his folks house to collect his bags before heading for the airport.


Ft Benning, Georgia

Steve flew to Atlanta on June 22 2001 and from there caught the Army bus that drove the boots to Fort Benning. The eight weeks spent in basic was tough and was a real eye opener for Steve. He then attended jump school, and in recognition of his seemingly natural yet subtle leadership skills he showed during both basic and airborne schools, Steve was recommended for and accepted into the Basic Leadership Training course. When he graduated, he was assigned as a sergeant in the 1st Platoon - Fox Company - 2nd Battalion - 7th Infantry Regiment of the 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division and saw combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. On his 2nd tour in Afghanistan, he was promoted to 1st sergeant and was TDA to a Special Forces Brigade for the Bahgran Valley operation. It became a pitched battle with insurgents and lasted for 44 hours before the remaining insurgents withdrew. Afterward, he returned to his unit after he was awarded the Silver Star for actions in the Helmand Province operations. 1st Sergeant Steve Harrison was glad to be back with his own men.

• Late in 2003 when three officers of 2nd Battalion were taken out of action by a roadside bomb and subsequent ambush, Steve stepped up and rallied the troops of Fox Company, and those of both Dog and Easy as well. Steve showed a good ability to be able to command under fire, and so after the battle reports came in Steve given a brevet battlefield commission to 2nd lieutenant. There was concern about him leading a company he was a part of, but with the casualties and the rotation of many to return home, Steve would be given command of 1st Platoon once he returned from leave, and would find that despite a cadre of veterans, his platoon consisted of a majority of new, inexperienced men. They only went on one long range patrol before the division was ordered out of Afghanistan to Iraq in March 2004.

• Once they arrived in Iraq, the air was different. It was still dusty, but the stench of hydrocarbons had replaced the stench of goat shit. The division was able to fully train and by the time November came, they were ready for the streets of Fallujah. The battle lasted a month as they cleared the city street by street, block by block. When the end of November came, the division was given some R&R in Europe before being re-assigned once again to Kandahar. In early 2005.


Officer Candidate School

My application was accepted, and after my leave I returned to Fort Benning to attend the Basic Officers Leadership Course. Since I excelled at this I was sent to an additional reconnaissance specialty course for three weeks at West Point. I was sitting in the ceremony to be commissioned.


Commission

I was commissioned as a 2nd lieutenant and assigned to a unit in the 3rd Infantry Division. I visited Oakwood for a few days before I flew to Fort Campbell where I joined the replacement cadre. We were there just long enough to ship out to Fort Lewis for some mountain training before being deployed to Afghanistan.


Deployment

Kandahar Afghanistan. We ran SOP search and destroy IED manufacturing points. It was a tough experience to know the population around you was friendly, until they weren't. My first combat was outside a ville that was known to be Taliban-friendly. Months later in that same ville, I lost one man and had two seriously wounded when Private Fred Hoff made a mis-step and tripped an AP mine. He lost his leg. The worst happened a few seconds later. The mine was det-corded to a buried IED that Private Bennett was practically standing on. He disappeared in a cloud of smoke and dust, with Private Dim picking up iron, rock, and bone shrapnel from the detonation. I and a couple other guys had pieces of Benny splattered all over us.

The good news was we discovered a lot of IED parts and explosive, much of it stolen U.S. Army ordinance supplied to the Taliban buy rogue Afghan Army soldiers....

 

[Steve Harrison]

OOC: Working on the overall Oakwood story that has been a part of my RP character existence since 2018. Had to re-calibrate the timeline some as it was quite fragmented in the initial splattering of RPs. I wrote with several people. Most of these were one-off erotica scenarios that lasted a few weeks at most. One was a major storyline that took a pause when my co-writer took an internet break, but contacted me when they came back liking the way I had filled in the story. We then wrote a couple sequels set 5 years and 18 years after the original RP. This had the setting timeline skewed forward into the future around 2037 or thereabouts. So I adjusted the timeline back to have the 18 years ahead scenario set in 2019. My co writer and I are working on recalibrating our character's lives to the new timeline, eliminating some inconsistancies.

Back in the first part of 2019, one of my former co-writers tried to co-opt the Oakwood scene and setting in their own monologue RP posts. They wanted our RP to be set in Minnesota where the co-writer lived. Well, they can have Oakwood Minnesota. The true and original Oakwood initially created in 2018 by one of my then co-writers was set in northern California as a mythical sister city of a similar size to the mythical Charming California of Sons of Anarchy fame. I actually had a fandon-ish character for an MC club RP based in Oakwood, so it worked out! The fun is tying them all together into one story which is what I plan to do and will 'publish' it in the Storytelling forum at some time.

 

[Steve Harrison]

Steve Harrison Meets Katherine Hall

Steve was not thrilled to be going back to school. It was something he did not enjoy. All the studying and lecturing and needing to pass tests. Steve could not cope with the bombardment. somehow, he had managed to get by, except for 6th grade. He got held back then. Mr Beady saw through his crap, and he couldn't convince him to let him pass.

So here he was, eighteen years old and beginning his senior year in high school. He expected it to be another year of basketball, football, and wrestling trophy’s and excuses to get him by the hard classes because he was a big part of bringing wins to the school sports program.

Unfortunately, the state had its requirements for graduation. Steve had managed to get most of his credits through his last three years, but he was going to fall short if he did not pass his government and language arts classes. So, after picking up Jessica Saraiva, a girl new to Oakwood who he met on orientation day, he drove to Oakwood High and rolled into the student parking lot. He backed into his usual parking spot by an odd-looking, somewhat stunted pine tree and got out.

“You up to smoke out Jessica?” Steve asked as she got out of his car. She looked at Steve for a moment before saying “No, not the first day. I want to have a clear head while I learn the ways of my new school. See you after class?”

Steve nodded in agreement and watched Jessica as she walked away. He then got into Darrell Sanders’s van to smoke out with him, Scarlett Heart, and Kaia Clarke. After a couple joints were passed around, Steve got out and was greeted by a few of his other school friends whom he hadn't seen since the end of last year. After a chat, he set off to find his first period class.

He looked at the schedule he gotten on orientation day as he wandered up to the second floor of the old wing of the school. He was heading for room 218 for his language arts class taught by Ms Katherine Hall. The name sounded nice. It kind of rolled off the tongue unlike Mr Edgar Neidermeyer, who was his second period government teacher. When Steve realized he was standing right outside room 218, he walked in. He was early. He hated being early. The advantage of being early the first day of class was he got to sit on the back corner of the class. Nobody behind you or on one side of you. Steve made his way to the desired desk and sat down.

Being at first more concerned about where he sat, he didn’t really take notice of the teacher who sat at her desk off to the side of the classroom. He sat and kept his eyes on Ms Katherine Hall while other students filtered into the room.

 

[Steve Harrison]

Some Chronology of Events - My Oakwood Story

The City of Oakwood is located in San Joaquin County Northern California about 40 miles northeast of Stockton and 13 miles roughly due east of Lodi near the Camanche Reservoir. It has two distinct areas as the Mokelumne River splits the city into North Oakwood (Dogtown) and South Oakwood (Clements) and the old timers still refer to by their old unincorporated names (It is a local 'sister-city' of Charming California as presented in the TV show Sons of Anarchy).

Stephanie – Born Sept 11 2001 – Is a senior at Santa Barbara High Class of 2019.
Katherine’s birthday is May 31 1974 – Katherine gave birth to Stephanie in Santa Barbara California at age 27

Steve’s birthday November 22nd​ 1982 -Steve was a senior at Oakwood California graduating June 2001. Goes into army pre-911.
Steve and Kath fuck the night of December 22 2000. This leads to the conception of Stephanie.
Steve and Kath, y 6 months pregnant, fuck again June 11 2001 after Steve graduates.
Katherine is packed up and she drives to Santa Barbara on June 15th, the day Steve flies out to bootcamp.
Steve reports to bootcamp at Ft Benning Georgia on June 22nd​ 2001. He does 8 weeks bootcamp and 1 week additional for airborne prep. Returns to Oakwood August 23rd​.
*Steve Marries Jenna, his last high school girlfriend August 27th​ after he returns to Oakwood after bootcamp. She is living at his parents guesthouse and Steve files for adoption of Jenna’s daughters. (*Cite separate alternate timeline)
Steve Reports to Officer Cadet School August 29 2001 and is where he is at on September 11 2001.
Steve reports to Ft Campbell for US Army Air Assault training after he completes OCS. Upon graduation in December 2001 he is assigned to his unit as a 2nd​ Lt.
His initial assignment was to the 101st​ Airborne’ 3/187th​- C Company /3rd​ Platoon. His Company Commander was Captain ‘Rusty’ Wallace.

 

[Steve Harrison]

Katherine

Meet Katherine

Name: Katherine Hall
Nicknames: Kat, Kath
Birthday: May 31 1974
Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde
Personality: Dedicated, loving, loyal, kind-hearted
Mannerisms: Biting her lip when she's thinking, tapping her desk with a pen
Likes: Reading, teaching, writing, spending time with her daughter Stephanie
Dislikes: Disloyalty, cheating, people who give up easily

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Description:

Faceclaim: Doutzen Kroes

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Becoming a Teacher:

An Unexpected Call Came – January 22nd​ 1994

• Age – 19
• Relationship Status - Single
______________________________________________________________________________________________

It was Kat's Freshman year of college. Like most Freshman, Kat had hardly a care in the world. College was more about socializing and being out on her own for the first time than actually preparing for a career. She was pledging a sorority, exploring New York City, and spending most of her alone time writing fantasy novels instead of actually doing her homework.

In an instant, all of that changed.

Her phone rang - it was her father's secretary. With the news that the plane her parents had been on crashed in the jungles of Peru.

It took weeks to find the bodies, but there was never really hope that her parents were alive. Katherine's care-free lifestyle was turned upside down in an instant, for she was the oldest of four siblings. They were still in public school, so it was up to her to care for them. Overnight, this 19-year-old became a mother to her brothers and sister. Her own grief was overshadowed by her need to comfort them, leaving her little time to deal with her own emotions. She had to be strong for them.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Finding New Purpose

There was no need for Katherine to work - her parents had been wealthy, and all of that wealth was left to her as the caretaker for her three younger siblings. As a result, she spent all of her time basically fulfilling the duties of a stay-at-home mom, giving up her own aspirations and rarely writing anymore.

Her younger sister, Alice, noticed that her behavior was unhealthy, and started searching for something to help her. When one of the English teachers at her school unexpectedly quit, Alice brought the opportunity to Kat, telling her the school needed a long-term sub and she thought she would be good at it. A little reluctantly, Kat applied for and took the job.

To her surprise, she discovered a new passion and purpose. For the first time in months, her smile was genuine, and she looked forward to the day's activities. She was still able to care for her siblings being on the same schedule as them, but she wasn't just hanging around the house all day.

Soon afterwards, she began to take classes to earn her teaching certificate. She took the classes part time, still determined to be the best replacement mother for her siblings as she could. The three of them banded together to support her as well, and celebrated with her when she got her degree and took her first fulltime teaching job at Oakwood High School in August 1998.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Becoming a Mother...

• Age - 26
• Date - September 11 2000
• Occupation - English Teacher at Oakwood High School
• Relationship Status - Single

When teaching, Kath's passion for her subject was immediately apparent to her students. She had a way of drawing out the best from them by her kind and caring nature, and always supported them in whatever it was they chose to pursue.

One of those students was Steven Harrison. He was a Senior when he came to her class that first day of the 2000-2001 school year. He wasn't the first of her students to flirt with her, and she had never entertained any feelings for a student before - nor since. Yet somehow, Steve's kind nature and his persistence through the first semester wore down her barriers and, for a moment, filled the empty hole of loneliness she felt in her life.

And one evening in December just before the Christmas break, he filled a bit more than just that...

It was weeks later that she noticed something was wrong. Her appetite was off, and she felt like she was about to throw up all the time. A trip to the doctor confirmed what she suspected… she was pregnant with Steve's child.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Moving to Santa Barbara – June 15th​ 2001

• Age - 27
• Single and six months pregnant

When Steve's graduation rolled around, she knew there was no future for them. She was about six months pregnant at this point and struggling to keep people from asking too many questions. She'd told her immediate family that she decided to visit a sperm bank, which they all thought was unlike her, but they never would have guessed the truth.

No one would.

And she was counting on that to keep her career safe. Still, moving away from Oakwood was the only way she could think of keeping any damaging rumors from starting - especially after he visited her once more after graduation, before he went into the army.

It was never her intention to cut Steve out of his child's life, but she told herself it was what was best for the both of them. He had his whole life ahead of him and didn't need to be tied down by fatherhood. And they couldn't very well be seen together under any circumstances.

So, when she received an offer from Santa Barbara High School, at the other side of the state she signed the contract without asking many questions. Two weeks later, she was leaving her parents' home for good and travelling across country.

Two months after that, she gave birth at Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara to a beautiful baby girl. She named her Stephanie in recognition of the young man who gave her life, and whom Kat did not expect to ever see again.

Katherine with newborn Stephanie

Stephanie at 3 years old

Stephanie at 16 - Sept 11 2017

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Becoming a Wife

Life as a Single Mother

• Date - October 10 2001
• Age - 27
• Relationship Status - Single

Being new to Santa Barbara, her school, and motherhood all at once was quickly overwhelming for Katherine. Her usually controlled, carefully groomed appearance had become frazzled and thrown together, and the thought of dating was far from her mind.

Most of her colleagues didn't know she was a mother even though she had a picture of a baby girl on her desk. But one of them - a debonair, attractive, ex-boxer in the physics department - noticed that she didn't have a ring on her finger or appear to be otherwise attached. It didn't take him long to begin turning his charms on her. Kat however, resisted his advances all through the year even though inside she was quite warmed by his show of affection.

James Morrison...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

A Doomed Romance...

• Date - May 31st 2002
• Katherine Turns 28

Other female teachers had warned her aboutMr. Morrison. James was known as a ladies' man and had been in the beds of more than one of the teachers in the school. When he learned that it was her Twenty-Eighth birthday, James came to her room and tried to get her to allow him to take her out for dinner. Kat made it very clear to James that she wasn't interested because she knew that dinner would lead to more, and she didn't want to have to pay for a babysitter for a nearly eight-month old baby. This, of course, only made James that much more interested in her. He backed off a little for the rest of the school year, but Kat would smile slightly when he did come by to turn on the charm.

______________________________________________

• Age 28
• Date - September 30 2002
•Katherine's 2nd year teaching at Santa Barbara High School

With the passing of the time and the new school year, James's persistent charms eventually wore her down and she finally said yes to a dinner-date, and Kat brought Stephanie along. Kat figured that if he saw that she came with a one-year old daughter it would immediately turn him off and make him stop pursuing her. But instead, she watched him play with her throughout the evening and give her fatherly love and attention she had been missing the first year of her life, and Stephanie had quickly warmed up to him. This made Katherine start to see him differently, and though it scared her, she could feel the walls of her defenses starting to crumble around the edges. James had apparently started seeing her differently as well and it seemed he had a whole new level of love to let go over her and Stephanie. They started dating regularly in November 2020.

• Date - June 30th 2002

As the twist of events goes, Katherine and James seemed to enjoy their time together, and Stephanie would smile whenever James came over. Even though Kat and James started to get close, they rarely found a moment when Kat wasn't being a mother. Still, they got married that summer. James truly thought he could change his womanizing ways for Katherine for he genuinely loved her... and Stephanie. He was all too happy to have a family.

______________________________________________

• Date - July 1 2002
• James and Katherine's Honeymoon

Maybe it was something she ate or some bug she came down with, for on their honeymoon night, Kat got sick. James took care of her and knew there would be no romance in their suite that night. James stepped out after Kat was asleep to get a drink at the bar to unwind before going back to join her to go to sleep. There, James was minding his own business as he sipped his drink when a beautiful woman who introduced herself as Lavena[/U] came and sat next to him at the bar. They began to converse, and they bought each other another round of drinks as they talked, and James found it harder to resist the desires of his old ways than he'd expected. He ended up in the room Lavena had rented, and he returned to their honeymoon suite around 4 in the morning to slip in bed with his new wife.

______________________________________________

• Date June 30th 2003
• James and Katherine's 1 Year Wedding Anniversary

James told himself the morning after their honeymoon night that it was a final one-off, but over the year, his promiscuous nature proved to remain. He kept his many exploits from his wife for nearly a year, but everything came to light eventually. Kat had suspected for some months, and she didn't want to admit that she had free-fallen into the web that surrounds James. She remained in denial for Stephanie's sake, for the nearly two-year-old loved him deeply and he had become a big part of her life. Besides, she didn't have any actual proof, only suspicion. But when he was out late the night before their first anniversary, one of their colleagues saw James with a woman at a bar, and they were being quite friendly with each other. She managed to get a picture of them in each other's arms and she texted it to Katherine with a note saying, 'We tried to warn you'.

It was well past midnight when James came home. He was drunk and smelled of perfume. Kat sat in the dark ready to confront him, and she showed him the photo and demanded to know just how many women he'd cheated on her with. When he admitted to 'maybe twenty', Kat demanded that he leave the house immediately. James didn't resist. He packed a bag quickly and headed for the door. His parting shot was his pouring salt on the open wound when he told Kat about their honeymoon night. He drove off in the nigh and Kat had a good cry.

If it had just been her effected, Katherine wouldn't have been so upset. But Stephanie had woken up to the voices and heard the commotion. She would ask her "Where's James?" on almost a daily basis, and each time it hurt her mother's heart. But there would be no reconciliation. Kat filed for divorce later that month, and the attorneys got involved and the end had Kat got pretty much what she had asked for. The divorce was finalized on October 15th 2003. James had offered to still be part of the Stephanie's life, but despite their working at the same school, Katherine has been keeping her distance from him, and keeping Stephanie far from him as well.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Reconnecting with Steve...
(to be continued)