This sounds like an incredible book. After thinking about trips I can't ever remember of one that had romance in it except one and that turned to horror. I went to California to work at a Wildlife Waystation which was a dream come true. I met several of the other workers and really connected with one of them named Harold. Needless to say after many conversations we started seeing each other, he had a problem with alcohol before we started seeing each other, but after we were together he didn't drink anymore, or so I thought. I worked with the Vet and he worked as maintenance. Things went well for awhile and then he showed his drinking to me and said it was because of everyone else, I came from a home with an alcoholic Father and figured if I just showed Harold I could love him enough that it would change, but it didn't. He was asked to leave the Waystation and I stupidly followed. We went to his parents home and I adored them, they were wonderful people and Harold raved on how much in love with me he was and that his life was going to get better because of me in it and the love that we shared. We then decided to come back to the state I lived in and lived with my parents for awhile and then moved into our own place. We had decided to get married. I was planning the wedding full force and he was busy drinking anytime that he could and starting arguements with me and I stupidly kept thinking well it will get better once we are married and he realizes just how much I love him. I started finding bottles around the house, he also was waiting until I fell asleep at night and would then walk to the bars. Then the fighting got worse and the beatings started. I left him a month before the wedding and he killed a man with a steak knife right after when we were supposed to get married. This was a somewhat happy story in the beginning, but turned awful in the end.