Cassandra and Mark started back to the dorm as the sun was just dipping below the trees. She stopped several times to take more pictures. "The light is just perfect, thanks for inviting me along."

Mark looked at Cassandra and said. "No problem and um, in your black hair is amazing, I'm sure that's from your Indian side, and in this light, your eyes are just..."

"What?"

"I don't know, it's just such a stunning and exotic contrast."

"Well, thank my white Midwestern mom; they are a gift from her."

"What a great combination," he mused. "That's truly what makes America great."

They started walking back and Cassandra tripped a little on some tree roots. Mark steadied her and took her hand once again in his. She stared at his blue-gray eyes for a moment but didn't say anything.

As they once again stopped and sat on the bench near the duck pond, Cassandra took a couple more pictures in the fading light until the overhead street lamp came on and put an end to that. She put the lens cap on her fancy digital SLR and laughed softly. "Well that's it for tonight, I guess!"

Mark sat silently for a few seconds and then asked innocently enough. "How did you get interested in photography?"

Cassandra looked down at her shoes and in a quiet voice answered. "Well it was something that I was always interested in and I could do it at home when I was recovering..."

She then continued. "When I was seventeen, I got home from school one day after walking through the woods and laid down on the couch for a few minutes...I woke up in the hospital about three days later. I had been in a coma and they didn't know if I would ever wake up. When I did, my mom was by my side, she had hardly left for like 75 hours. I opened my eyes and looked up at her and was too weak to even speak. She told me that she had prayed and prayed and that it had worked. Getting better was a slow and painful process."

"Did they figure out what caused it?" he asked.

She shook her head sadly and flipped her long black hair over her shoulder. "The best guess the doctors had was that it was some kind of an allergic reaction to a spider or wasp sting. Do you see the scar on the back of my neck?

Mark leaned closer and Cassandra took his hand in hers and traced the circular scar with his finger, she shivered visibly at his touch and then covered the mark with her hair.

She went on with her story. "So other than a welt on the back of my neck, there was no other evidence and I never had any other symptoms. I was in the hospital for about three weeks and then my parents took care of me at home. When I finally started getting better, my mom said that it was her prayers that were answered."

Cassandra looked at him and in a quavering voice and went on. "That's when I started to get so thin. It was months until I could keep anything but soft foods down and just the smell of some things made me hurl. Slowly over time, I started getting back to normal. Then one day, when my mom was driving me back from the doctor, she swerved for an animal in the road and rolled the car. I wasn't hurt too bad; just some bruises and cuts. Mom was thrown from the car and had broken bones, a collapsed lung, and a concussion. It was touch and go for a few days, but she pulled through."

Then with tears visible in her eyes, Cassandra whispered. "I felt so guilty if she didn't have to take me to the doctor."

Mark gently put his arm around her as she finished the story.

"So just after mom had spent all that time nursing me back to health, I had to take care of her for almost two months. She's better now, but still, walks with a limp and you don't even want to know about the medical bills."

"What about school?" He asked.

"I was able to finish my senior year mostly from home. Public school is not exactly a challenge if you can actually read, write, and count past ten. So, high school was not so much fun. No dances, no football games, no big graduation, just a piece of paper mailed to me in June."

With her voice breaking up she went on. "My dad was real strict and wasn't going to let me date until I was 17, and then I got sick. So I never had a real boyfriend, I mean, I've never even been kissed."

Mark looked into her gorgeous green eyes and touched her face where a small tear was running down her cheek and gently kissed her on the lips and said very quietly. "Now you've been kissed."

She looked into his eyes and noticed how uniquely gray they were and whispered. "Do that again."

And he did.

They both stood up and held hands again and started down the well-worn path from the pond to the dorm. Cassandra regained her composure and stated in a more confident tone. "All that's behind me now, but I want more."

She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the aero building. "Back there you said or a beautiful girl, did you mean that?"

He just nodded "Yes."

She looked at him and said. "Look, I know that I'm way too thin, but I think that all the family drama is behind me. I've beat myself up for long enough and now I'm over it. It wasn't my fault. So now it's time to fix me. I want to get back to a healthy weight. I mean, I've always been thin, but this is ridiculous and I'm tired of being sad about it. I want to learn how to live life, be happy, and laugh again."

Mark gently squeezed her hand. "Okay, but stop blaming yourself. You almost died and then your mom almost died. Most people would be a ball of goo cowering in the corner after all that." He stopped and thought for a minute. "As for your request, I'll do anything I can do to help, but it's a tall order, what do you want me to do?"

"Well, for starters, help me gain some weight."

"Okay," he asked. "How much?"

"Um, I'm not sure," she answered.

"Okay, how tall are you?"

She answered. "Five-ten, give or take a bit."

"Right then, we know that you weigh 42 kilograms right now."

Cassandra looked at her feet and laughed wryly. "Help a girl out a little here, my metric is not so good and I'm a little afraid to ask what that is in pounds?"

Mark answered confidently. "Without counting on my fingers, at two point two pounds per kilo, that's 92 pounds and change. If we subtract three pounds for clothes, that's..."

She stopped him and with a very quiet voice said. "Not enough...I didn't know it had gotten that bad...I have been afraid to step on a scale for a long time. One more thing, how'd you do that math in your head?"

"What math?"

"Converting kilograms to pounds."

"Oh, that was easy. I know the conversion is factor two point two. Two times 42 is 84 and point two times 42 is eight point four so 84 plus 8.4 is 92.4. Easy, right?"

She gave him her best Barbie doll smile and chuckled. "I think I'll go take some pretty pictures now."

Mark took her hand in his. "Okay, getting back to the question of the day...and I'm not an expert, but I'm guessing that for your height, you should weigh at least 115 and that's probably still on the thin side...so you need to gain just over 25. Does that sound reasonable?"

"Yeah, I guess..."

"Tonight we'll do some research on the internet and find the ideal weight for your height and body type. We can also check out diets, calorie counts, and exercise regimens and make a plan from there. There's more to it than just diet. Not only do you have to eat right, but you have to make sure your metabolism has something to do with the calories. This will take a while to do right, you know slow and steady wins the race."

She nodded but didn't say anything.

Mark continued. "We'll work out together, run, walk, jog, lift weights, and all that."

He looked at her questioningly. "Is that what you want to try?

Cassandra reached over and squeezed Mark's hand. "Yes, I think so."

"But, for this to work, you have to be committed, I mean totally. You work out with me every day, and eat what I tell you to and basically do what I say. Deal?"

She smiled and gave him a businesslike handshake. "Deal, I'm all in!"

After a long pause, he broke the silence.

"Are you graduating in June like me?"

She nodded and smiled again. "Yes, I had better be! This student loan thing is killing me, and I have to get out in the real world and make some money to help my family pay off the medical bills."

"So we have the rest of this year and half of next year to complete our project."

He continued. "This will work out for both of us, I need to get in top shape and gain some weight and stamina myself to get ready for Air Force Officer Training School next summer. I want to max out that stupid PT test on day one and be done with it."

She stared at her shoes and squeezed his hand tightly in hers. In a voice just barely above a whisper, she said. "There's one more thing, I'll try my best and if I gain the weight, and make whatever goal we set, I want you to show me how to love..."

Dumfounded, he didn't say anything for a few seconds.

Mark made a silly Yoda voice. "First of all, there is no try."

And then in his normal voice, "it's not if, but when."

She rolled her eyes and then looked directly at him.

He stared back and quietly asked. "As for the second part, what exactly do you mean?"

"I mean everything."

"Wow. Just like that, I mean, you said that you never even had a real boyfriend before."

Cassandra nodded sadly.

Mark paused a moment. "That isn't something you just, you know do. So if that's what you want, we'll take it real slow, like what should have happened in high school, you know, one base at a time."

"Base?" she asked.

He smiled warily. "You know the baseball analogy first, second, home run."

"Okay, I have a pretty good idea of what each base is, but why don't you explain it to me."

"Well, first is just kissing, nothing below the shoulders. Second is, you know, shirts off but nothing below the waist and a home run is, well, everything else."

"What about third?"

"Most people run through the stop sign at third and slide home. No one ever really stops there unless another car pulls up or someone's parents come home early or an intern with a pizza opens the door to the washroom off the Oval Office."

"Ha-ha. All those smarts, and political humor too."

Mark did not know what to say, so he devolved to his best scientific method analysis. "So using the scientific approach we'll divide our goal into thirds. When you gain the first third of the weight, we go to first base. When you make the second third we go to second. That way we will take it nice and slow like you should have, you know if things were, um different."

"And when I make the goal, we go home."

"If that's what you want..."

"Trust me, it is."

"It's a deal."

He leaned over to kiss her, but then changed his mind and held out his arm in a handshake gesture.

They shook and then she whispered. "How 'bout one more for luck."

He moved in closer and kissed her passionately this time. She responded in kind.

"Wow. I can't wait for the home team to score."

Mark answered with a twinkle in his eye. "Yeah, but we can't be kissing anymore until you are ready to go to first base. And one more thing, to make it official for the final weigh-in, you have to get on that giant scale the same way you came into the world."