Honey Suckle

Part 16

We stood out in the hall for a while. I held Elizabeth in my arms and she tried not to cry. She was afraid Christopher was going tell people what we had been doing, but I wasn't. I wasn't afraid because something deep down inside of me was telling me not to be. 

When Elizabeth and I finally got down stairs Christopher was behind the counter reading the newspaper and sipping on a cup of coffee. Elizabeth and I sat in front of the counter. I looked over at Elizabeth who was biting anxiously at her finger nails. She was nervous but I tried not to be because when I pretended to be calm it somehow always calmed her. It's so hard to explain how I felt that day, I wasn't afraid because something deep down inside told me we were gonna be okay, but there was still a small portion of me who was nervous that we weren't.

Christopher didn't say anything at first, and then after a few moments of us sitting at the counter he decided he would. He was hard for him to form the right words, but eventually he told us. "Just a six months before I was brought here to Virginia I was fighting about one hundred miles south of here, and I was scared out of my mind and worried that I would lose my life. I was starting to experience nightmares and hallucinations more terrible then I ever expected. The War was bloody and terrible and the people on both sides were cruel. I had no one around me to comfort and help me through mental illness. I felt that I was alone in that horrid war."

Elizabeth and I listened as Christopher told us his story. "There weren't many people in that war who were willing to help me or anyone else in that matter because they were worried about themselves and wether or not they would live the night, but a couple months after I started to experience my episodes a French soldiered named Vincent DeRose who cared for me. When I woke in the middle of the night from nightmares Vincent was always there to help me through them he was the one person there for me. He was good to me." He continued.

For a moment I wondered why he was telling us this. I wondered what this had to do with what he had just witnessed. Then the thought donned on me. "Oh." I said in a soft voice. "You loved him." I said. Just like I loved Elizabeth he loved Vincent, and a since of relief swept over me because I knew our secret was safe with Christopher.

Christopher looked back at me, and said, "Yes. I did." 

I reached out to grab Christopher's hand to comfort him because he had just spilled his emotions to people he barely knew. There was a since of sadness in his eyes that looked as if he'd lost something very important to him. "What happened to him?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "I wish that I knew." He said. His lips were trembling as he spoke. You could tell he was about to cry.

Elizabeth got out of the chair she was sitting in and went and hugged him tightly. "I'm so sorry." She said still holding him in her arms. None of us really knew if Vincent DeRose was dead or alive, but one thing we all knew is that the odds were against him. Countless soldiers were killed since Christopher came to Virginia.

We talked and talked about about what it had been like for Christopher at war and what was probably happening at that moment, but there was one thing we never brought up. The fact that Vincent was probably dead.