𝐉𝐔𝐒𝐓 𝐀 𝐖𝐎𝐌𝐀𝐍 | | 1917

16. THOUGHTS

" I didn't mean to fall, but then, unaware, I stepped right in. "

-

APRIL 13th
1917
The Second Battalion

(presence)
-

WILLIAM KEPT WAITING. He didn't know for what, yet that was all he did. He couldn't fight so all he did was wander around. It was all too much for him. After the journey, after Blake, and after Josephine, he wasn't the same.

The men around him were rushing constantly. He knew that he was needed to fight, they needed soldiers.

But it was all too much. And William was too small. Smaller than you might think. Just wanting to curl up into a ball and disappear.

But he couldn't. He was trapped. And he would be until it all eventually would stop.

Josephine was there as well. She hadn't left his mind after all this time. Finding excuses to meet her at the medical tents and then talk to her about everything he could come up with. Just to have someone to talk to. He'd give it all just to see her face only one more time. And the next day he'd do the same.

It was nice. An escape to this harsh reality. Yet, ignoring the fact that after this war would end; he'd probably never see her again. He could see them promising to exchange a couple of letters the first few months, but that would be it. After a while, she wouldn't return his messages. And that would be it.

She would forget him and marry a well-put-together and good french man, someone she deserved, and live with him and their many beautiful children in a nice house until her last days.

Will would be left as a memory. That one English soldier she came across once and doesn't remember the name of.

If even that.

He thought back to the day before. He and Jo had met on a casual walk outside. He had noticed her and walked over to her, only to meet those familiar eyes once again.

After a while, they sat down on a bench. He spoke to her and she would smile. If only he could stay there, at that moment, all day and every day. Simply looking at her. It was all he asked for. All he wanted.

He wondered why. Was she his escape? A pathetic attempt to heal his sorrowful thoughts?
Someone that didn't belong in the world they were in currently in, but somewhere greater. Someone that would remind him of good times, without even knowing. Bringing memories the soldier had forgotten since a long tile back only by being in his presence, unaware.

He only remembered a few words they exchanged. A few sentences, even though it had been so recently. He was lost in her gentle words and found himself smiling at her word she spoke softly. Her tone was endearing to him. Maybe it was just him, or maybe she was simply an angel sent from the above.

His mind trying to deal with all the pain.

No, that couldn't be it.

William didn't have the mind to make up something quite like her.

He wondered if she talked to the other soldiers like that since her time as a nurse in the war. He hoped, yet too ashamed to admit, that it wasn't the case and that he was that someone she would find herself wanting to talk to. Not anyone else.