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✲꘏ ꘏ ꘏ ꘏✲
"Since we're talking about them..." I said quietly. "Why didn't you ask about Merilu? I know she is... or rather, I suppose I should say she was... your fiancée."
"Why are you suddenly concerned about her?" Tobias asked. He looked even more unsettled than before, his brows drawn together as he studied me.
"I don't know, Tobi," I whispered, blinking rapidly. My eyes had filled with tears, and I rubbed them with my fingers, trying to stop them from spilling over. I couldn't explain why I felt such an overwhelming urge to cry.
"Yes, she was my fiancée," he replied after a pause. "But we broke up before the war."
"But she told me she became pregnant just before the war began and lost the baby when it broke out," I recalled.
"She did become pregnant," he said. "And, without either of us knowing it at the time, we had already broken up."
He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.
"We were together for only a year. When I told her it was over and enlisted, she kept writing to me. Soldiers received mail every week, and every single week I would get at least three letters from Merilu. They all said the same thing. She believed we were still together, that I loved her. But I never did. I never loved her. And I never answered a single one of those letters."
"And yet you still made sure she was safe," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Even if you didn't love her, you saw to it that she had a place to hide from the war, just like your parents."
"Only out of respect for my parents," he answered. "They had placed all their hopes in the two of us. Even after they knew I had left her, they refused to accept it and insisted that I look after her."
He let out a weary sigh.
"Her mother was my mother's closest friend. Merilu and I grew up together. When we started dating, it simply seemed like the right thing to do. Back then I never questioned my own feelings. I never stopped to ask myself whether I loved her. It didn't matter."
"But you broke her heart."
"As if you've never broken anyone's heart."
"I haven't," I shot back, folding my arms across my chest. I fixed him with a defiant stare. "I've never even had a boyfriend."
"Not one?"
"Not one."
"Oh..."
"I suppose you've had hundreds."
Tobias said nothing.
He merely lifted an eyebrow slightly and turned his gaze toward the cabin's round porthole.
I had no idea what he was looking at.
Beyond the glass there was nothing but the endless sea.
It seemed he simply wanted to avoid meeting my eyes.
