Page 18 of The Lies We Leave Behind

18

I knew it was coming. He was doing so well. The wounds on his arm and stomach had healed and faded to a dark pink, and his limp was nearly gone, the infection in his leg having healed, his strength and mobility returning.

“A week?” I said, sinking to the blanket he’d just laid out.

It was my day off and we were enjoying another picnic under our favorite tree.

“At least I’ll be close,” he said.

But we both knew his proximity to where I was stationed or where I flew in to pick up the wounded didn’t matter. It was the fact that he was reentering the war that was the very terrifying problem.

“William,” I whispered, reaching for him.

He pulled me close.

In the end, we didn’t stay long under our tree. I was too distracted to listen to the new poems he read, the grass I pulled from the earth wilting beneath my fingertips as I forgot to braid it, my mind on the fact that by this time next week he’d be running toward the enemy as bullets flew toward him.

“Kate,” he said, taking the blades carefully from my fingers. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

He smiled softly and held out a hand, pulling me to my feet.

We spent the remainder of the day in the room we always rented, his body curled around mine, my body curled around his, as we talked, made love, and dozed in the sunlight streaming through the crack in the curtains.

At dinnertime we wandered downstairs and made our way to one of our favorite pubs, smiling and nodding to the familiar faces as we took a seat at a corner table and ordered from the meager menu.

We returned to our room afterward, William sitting on the edge of the bed and wrapping his arms around my waist, resting his forehead on my stomach as I ran my fingers through his hair.

“I don’t want to leave you,” he said as tears ran down my face and fell, landing on the back of my hand.

“I don’t want you to go,” I whispered.

When we made love again, we did so quietly, slowly, our eyes drinking each other in as we moved together. I felt as though my every nerve ending was alight, his hands on my skin making me feel more alive and more aware than I’d ever been before. His breaths echoed in my ears, the beating of his heart reverberated against me...through me.

Afterward we lay together, our bodies intertwined, our gazes fixed on one another. I was unable to say a word. All I could do was watch him, drink him in, as I tried to absorb every second I had with him until he fell asleep, and then I did.

“Kate.”

I woke to William whispering my name, his lips trailing a path over my shoulder to my neck.

It was still dark out and I groaned and shook my head. I didn’t want the night to be over. I wasn’t ready.

“Come with me,” he said.

“It’s time to go already?” I asked.

“Not yet. But I need you to wake up a little early today. Please?”

I blinked in the dark, confused, tired, and then smiled at his face above mine. I could not and would not ever resist him.

“Okay,” I said.

We left a half hour earlier than we normally did, the sun still a couple hours away from appearing, making the ride on our bicycles a little more difficult, the air a touch too cool.

I didn’t ask questions. I knew if William had asked me to get up earlier than we normally did, he had a good reason, and I would follow him anywhere.

As we coasted down a slight hill, he looked over his shoulder and smiled at me in the dark. I grinned back, my chest swelling with love for this man I hadn’t expected to meet. Hadn’t wanted to meet. And yet succumbed to his charms regardless, because that was how love worked. No matter how determined one was to not find it. How difficult and frightening it was to feel it. Love didn’t care. Circumstances be damned. It wanted to be known, felt, and returned.

As we came to an intersection, William took a right and I smiled. I knew exactly where he was taking me.

In the dark, our tree stood black and elegant against the navy sky. William slowed and then stopped, pushing down the kickstand of his bicycle and then waiting patiently as I did the same.

The grass was damp and I worried for a moment how it would look if I turned up on base, my backside wet with dew, but William didn’t sit, he merely leaned against the tree’s trunk and pulled me to him.

“I remember the first moment I saw you,” he said and I chuckled.

“No, you don’t,” I said. “You were too woozy from pain and blood loss.”

He grinned and pinched my backside playfully.

“That came later,” he said. “You weren’t paying attention to me, you were too busy doing your job. And boy, were you beautiful as you looked so seriously down at the tag attached to my shirt before giving me a brief smile and moving on to the next guy.”

My mouth opened but I had no words. I was embarrassed to admit he was right. I barely had recollection of him outside the plane, just his name and injuries. The first time I remember really noticing him was when I checked on him midflight, and then of course when I realized he was bleeding and I had to stitch him up.

“It’s okay,” he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I loved watching you without you knowing. I’d never seen a woman so focused on her job. So efficient and caring and knowledgeable. You were like an angel in that field, and then on the plane, moving from patient to patient, administering medications and bandages, making conversation, squeezing a hand, feeling foreheads. And the way you weren’t bothered by those Jerries...”

I shrugged. “I’m no different than any of the other women out here doing the same.”

But he shook his head. “But you are. You care so deeply. I can see it in your eyes when you’re tending to your patients. I can see it in the way you look after your friends when they come in from a shift. You’re kind and strong. You make me laugh. You listen when I’m frustrated about not being out there, fighting beside my brothers. And even though you didn’t want to love me. Even though it scared you. You did it anyways. In a way I’ve never been loved before. And I promise you now, I will never love anyone the way I love you.”

We were both silent, his words hanging between us.

“I was only a little bit serious on that plane,” he said. “But I’m very serious now.”

He stood upright then, causing me to take a step or two back as he pulled something from his pocket and held it out to me.

“I swore to myself I wouldn’t get involved while I was over here fighting. Not even a fling. It wasn’t worth it to me to feel or cause heartache like that. But the moment I saw you I knew the universe had sent me a challenge. And when you came to check on me in the base hospital, well...that sealed the deal. I was smitten. But now... Now I’m in love. And so I have to ask, my wounds healed, no blood leaving my body, Kate Campbell, will you marry me?”

Marriage was not something I’d ever considered in my short life. I’d grown up listening to my parents scheme and shame and feed off one another’s ugliness, causing me to decide my life would have a purpose larger than finding “the one.” And no matter that I’d later had a wonderful example of what marriage could be from my aunt and uncle and then watched my high school friends fall in love and proclaim how lovely and wonderful it was to find “the one,” I’d decided it wasn’t in the cards for me. I’d find a different path.

And so when boys asked me out, I pointed them to Janie or Claire, offering them up as an alternative. When I was approached in pubs or the library or the hall of the hospital where I volunteered, I politely shook my head and returned my gaze to whatever chart I’d been poring over.

But then I met William. And suddenly all the reasons I’d had for not falling for someone fell away, and left in their place was a stark and beautiful truth.

I loved him.

Where before I might have dissected the how and why of it, I found I didn’t care to now. I just wanted to feel it. To allow it. To revel in it and him and us. I wasn’t curious. I didn’t need to study it. It just was. An absolute. And I wanted more of it.

“Yes,” I whispered, and then grinned as his face lit up, my heart feeling like it might burst out of my chest as he opened the box he’d held out to me and slipped a ring on my finger.

“I’ll come by the field hospital whenever I’m near to see if you’re around,” William said, wiping a tear from my cheek. “And I’ll write.”

We were standing around the corner from the airfield, savoring every second we had left before he had to go.

I nodded. “And I’ll see about getting a few days off.”

Our plans were tentative. Getting letters to one another would be simple enough, but spending time together would prove more difficult. He had no idea when he’d be eligible for leave, but when he was, he would fly back to England and we’d stay in our usual room at the little hotel we’d found and made ours in town.

I could feel the time ticking down, each second a beat of my heart, the sound filling my ears as I stared up at him and he looked down at me, his eyes moving over my face as I tried to memorize every detail of his.

I ran my fingers through his soft brown hair, taking in his lightly tanned skin, faded-blue-jean eyes, and the lips I’d already kissed at least a couple hundred times. Smoothing my palm across his jaw, I breathed in the scent of him, filling my lungs, holding him there, before breathing him out and melting into him.

He wrapped his arms around me and I wished that somehow I could merge my body with his. To be part of him. To never have to leave him.

“If only there was some kind of magic,” I said and he held me tighter, his chest rising and falling against mine.

“I think perhaps there is,” he said, and I looked up. “Because there’s no other explanation for you saying you’ll marry me.”

I grinned up at him and he smiled.

“I can’t wait to marry you,” I said.

“But you will, right?”

I laughed. “I will. I’ll wait forever if I have to.”

“Good. But let’s not wait that long. Deal?”

“Deal.”

He kissed me then, my fiancé, long and hard until I was breathless and tears filled my eyes, blurring his face when we parted. And when we did he pressed something into my hand. I looked down and my eyes welled once more. It was the picture he’d taken of us beneath our tree.

“I should’ve taken more,” he said. “So I have one too. Keep it safe?”

“I will.”

He hugged me to him again and then pulled away.

“Stay safe up there,” he said, pointing to the sky.

“Stay safe over there,” I said, pointing east.

“I love you, Kate. Forevermore.”

“Forevermore, William. I love you.”

And then, with a last kiss, he flung his bag over his shoulder and strode across the tarmac to the plane waiting to take him to France. Before disappearing inside he waved once more and then he was gone.

I stood alone at the edge of the runway, watching as the aircraft taxied, paused, and then began rolling, picking up speed before its wheels lifted and the plane was airborne, a gust of wind chasing behind it and swallowing my last whispered “goodbye.”