𝙵𝚛𝚘𝚖 𝚆𝚑𝚎𝚛𝚎 𝙸 𝚂𝚝𝚊𝚗𝚍 | 𝐃𝐔𝐍𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐊 [Collins]

Chapter 20 - Hold onto each other

(revised)

Every day was the same since I had left for Merston again. Freya and I had been married for several months now and yet, we only had spent twenty-four hours together as husband and wife before we had to say goodbye again. Maybe it was just me, but the separation was less heart-breaking than the first time for we had made a promise to each other. We were confident we would live our life together, but there I was, back to my planes as my mother would say, back to my duty. Days were very busy and very similar. I had my diary to keep track of time, otherwise I would not know which day it was. November had gone, then December and Christmas away from my family, New Year with the hope that 1941 would bring the war to an end, my 26th birthday that I celebrated with my teammates to forget I was not with my wife, and then, Easter, alone again. Summer had started, a harsh reminder that I had not been home for almost a year. A year of seeing the same faces every day and not the one I missed the most; a year of kissing her photograph as a ritual before I had to take off and before going to sleep; a year of exchanging letters that just reminded us how lonely we felt; a year of erasing the names of the fallen ones from the black board of the common room and praying that mine would not be the next one to disappear...

My teammates and I were so weary of this war, yet we knew we were needed. We were not human beings anymore, we were machines. As soon as the ringtone was heard, we would switch off our feelings and run to our planes, take off, do our thing, land and go back to our quarters to wait for the next call. And if we came back fewer than we had left, we would head to the pub at the end of the day and drink pint after pint to forget it could have been us.

All of that, I would not tell Freya in my letters. I would not tell anyone. I would pretend that I was fine, confident and courageous and not that I was scared every time I had to leave on a mission. I would not tell her that I was not able to sleep properly anymore and that I would spend most of my nights staring at the ceiling, haunted by images of the fights I had done. I would not tell her when another pilot had died so she would worry less about me instead of fearing for my life. I would not tell her being away from her was driving me mad. And I knew she was doing the same. I knew she was pretending to be fine while my mother told me she was struggling to enjoy life as she was supposed to.

*

There was not a single second during the day when I was not thinking about him. Even now, when I was supposed to enjoy my afternoon in the countryside with Joseph and our mutual friends, the day was spoiled by the thought that he was the only person missing. I was observing Henry and his girlfriend messing around in the river and I felt terribly jealous. I had the impression that all I could feel now was jealousy. Lovers holding hands in the street, a couple kissing while waiting for the underground, a pregnant woman helped out of a car by her husband; I envied them, all of them. I despised them for being able to be happy and together in a time of war. I despised them for reminding me that I was not allowed such happiness. So, accepting to leave London for an afternoon in the countryside had been a terrible idea for I had to witness the expression of Henry's affection for his girl when all I wanted was to yell at him to stop. I wished I could be happy for them. I felt terrible for being so bitter, but I could not help it.

"Stop torturing yourself," Joseph told me, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"I'm not—" I tried to deny.

"You're looking at them as if you wanted to kill them," he laughed.

I sighed, he was right.

"I know how you feel, but you've to let go. There's nothing we can do about it. We just have to be patient," he tried to comfort me.