The Way Back Home: A 1917 Fanfic

Chapter 22: Young and Beautiful

Amelia sat on her hospital bed later in the night, listening to the distant rumbling of bombs and gunshots. The letter from Will sat on the table by her bed next to the vase containing the wilting bouquet of daffodils and alstroemerias from Joseph. Will's letter sat folded against the vase, intact with the folded creases of the paper.

She inhaled a trembling breath as she tried to keep from placing her hands over her ears, wanting to block out the rumbling of the bombings in the faraway trenches.

What was Will doing at this moment? Lying low in his trench, awaiting orders to go over the top? She recalled seeing the black and white footage of such instances from the London museums back in the present, soldiers with tin helmets strapped to their heads, charging with bayonets and rifles, shouting to the charge toward the enemy.

And Joseph? Was he leading his men in a similar scenario, running blindly to destroy the Germans, and for what? How she hoped she hadn't broken his heart too much with her inability to reciprocate his adulation of her.

She still wasn't certain if she could categorize it as Joseph truly loving her yet, with his still reeling from Thomas' death.

How she wished she could've given him more to remember her by before they had parted, and she truly hoped she would see him again in the future. As much as she promised her heart to William, she would be devastated at the thought of never seeing Joseph again after they had parted just mere days ago.

Amelia had seen plenty of movies and TV shows back in the present that involved women being loved by two different men and she made a vow to herself that her choice would be resolute and unbreakable, despite her recalling Nurse Rosette's words.

One man who had her heart and the other who had her soul...

What kind of woman was she turning into?

She was still the same self-reliant woman caught in the most unusual circumstances. No man would ever own her or make her feel less than a woman that was some man's possession or trophy.

And Will understood that. He never pressured her into anything she didn't want, and he desired to see her return home. Whether she would ever come back to him or not. It would be her own choice...

And she had given Joseph a lesson in knowing that she was not a woman any man was entitled to have despite her supposed damsel-in-distress status with his position as her defender to get her to the hospital unharmed, for the most part.

She would stand to be respected as a woman with the right to love whoever she chose, God help the man who stood to challenge her on that notion.

She was not a trophy to be placed on a mantle or a flighty love interest who only served to please the man she was with and to sit still and look pretty with nothing interesting to say. God made her a flawed female, not an idealized projection of feminine perfection, and she would never apologize for it.

And besides, Will loved her for who she was, and she loved him in return ...

The addressed letter from Lt. Joseph Blake still lay on her blanket-covered lap, unopened. She had done everything else tonight to keep herself occupied from it. She ate every bite of the hospital food served to her for dinner, walked a few rounds around the room on her crutches, bathed and washed her hair, and brushed her teeth down to the gums, trying to rid her mouth of halitosis.

There was no more delaying it now. She had to read the letter now, or she'd lose her nerve. And she had to respond to it, or he would assume he would never want to see him again, that she had written him off as a hopeless shoulder to cry on in William's absence.

No, Joseph was a better man than that archetype of romantic emasculation. She had made her feelings clear, and he understood without manipulating her in the moments she'd had of emotional weakness. They would not blur the lines together between friendship and love.