Gabe - Two.

Gabe

            I had faced some long nights in the past few months: sleeping on the street in Paris, staying up all night with a gun pointed at the door in an abandoned warehouse in Germany, cowering in a covered army truck at the Polish border. But this topped them all. Lying in a dark room with Erich, in a building teeming with Nazis, half an hour after he pointed a gun at me, I felt so small and powerless and overwhelmed I could barely breathe.

I did everything I could to keep from crying. Crying wouldn’t do me any good now, I knew. Actually, it was Erich who had taught me that, so I knew he of all people wouldn’t want to listen to me sniffle the night away. But once the first tear slipped down my cheek, there wasn’t much I could do about it except try and keep him from hearing. He was just going to have to live with it if he did.

I knew he would think about the time I had watched him cry. I remembered it so clearly: Erich lying in that bed in the infirmary with his shoulders shaking and his eyes squeezed shut, like he was trying to keeping a weight on his shoulders from crushing him. He had asked me not to leave that night, and I hadn’t. I didn’t want him to leave tonight.

But it wasn’t until I heard him shift uncomfortably in his bed that I realized why I was crying. Knowing Erich was there made me happy. Erich " so tough, so remarkable, so familiar. Having his solid, silent presence huddled a yard away from me made me feel like everything I had done to get this far was worth it. And even though I still felt sad and bewildered and scared out of my mind, I was crying because I was happy too.

I shouldn’t have said it, but he had to know. If he never knew the rest " which he might not have, if Hersch had his way " Erich had to know how I felt right then.

“Erich?”

“What?”

What could I say? I couldn’t say what I wanted to; how two and a half years without him had been unbearable, how I trusted him not to turn me in even though he was entirely within his right, how excruciatingly badly I wanted him to come over and kiss me like he had that last night at Wellington’s.

“I missed you.”

He didn’t respond. Of course he didn’t; I knew he wouldn’t, but it felt good to say it just the same. And after, I managed to suck it up and stop blubbering. I still couldn’t sleep. Instead, I rolled over and tried to pull together all the events that had gotten me here.

After we were separated on that last day at Wellington’s, I had gone back to the only home I knew: Heathshire, the family estate. No one had lived in the place for nearly three years and it was in complete disrepair, but I couldn’t bring myself to care.

I didn’t really like to think about those twenty months before I heard from Rebecca" bloody hell, how could it have possibly been that long? I had spent almost two years rambling around in a house that only reminded me of my parents while I mourned the loss of the only friends I had ever known. The place was much too big, and even on good days I felt small and insignificant. I felt like a child, a child with too much time and no one to care for him. Most days, I just sat in the overgrown garden and played my violin until my fingers were raw and tears streamed down my face.

And at night, I studied German. It was a bloody stupid goal. But, the longer I kept at it, the easier it was for me to convince myself that I might put it to use. I made myself believe that if I could just learn his language, I might see Erich again someday. And when even that failed to pull me from the darkness, I prayed. I would reach for Leo’s rosary and pray and pray for God and the Virgin, and every one of the saints to let me find them, or to let me die.

Even thinking about those months made me feel like falling asleep and never waking up. Really, I don’t know how much longer I would have lasted. But being here, I saw that all three of them have had it just as bad as me, probably worse. Jim’s just lost like he’s always been, Hersch has become an old man in two and a half years, and Erich…

Something’s wrong with Erich. Something terrible happened in these two and a half years, I can tell. I can see it. I knew Erich, and he never would have come back to this life if something hadn’t happened. Something was killing him, and he was never going to tell me about it.

I didn’t want to think about it. I had enough to be afraid of, without being worried about Erich too. Still, I tried hard to fight back the disappointment that had taken root in my stomach. Of course, I always knew that the odds were that Erich wouldn’t take me in his arms the moment he saw me again, but I never expected him to treat me like he had today. He had been so cold, so angry, so utterly unhappy to see me again, even after everything. I had never imagined him being that uncaring.

I couldn’t let myself believe that he really didn’t care about me anymore. If that was true, then nothing I had done up to this point was worth anything. I had to believe that Erich was lying to himself, that he was hiding his feelings deep inside because he just couldn’t face me again. I had to believe he would never deny the truth of what he felt that morning on the steps. He couldn’t take the truth of that moment away from me. I wouldn’t let him. 

Erich’s breathing got heavier, and I figured he had somehow managed to fall asleep. The lamp next to me was still on, so I tentatively, cautiously, turned on my side to look at him. On the street, Erich had looked even bigger and more intimidating that usual. The sight of him in an actual SS uniform was terrifying. His face was even harsher and more angular than it was before, if that was even possible. He had a fair beard now, too, though if I knew the soldiers he would probably be ordered to shave it sooner or later. It made him look like a man, and that scared me. Everyone else was grown up, and I was still the baby. I was the age now that Hersch had been at Wellington’s, nineteen, and I still commanded about one tenth of the respect he had.

Erich didn’t look grown up now, though. Sleeping lightly, his cold eyes shut and the angry tension in his jaw relaxed, he could have been eighteen again. Was he twenty or twenty-one now? The way he looked right then, he could have been dozing leaning back on the chimney on the roof of Wellington’s. He could have been lying in the infirmary while I waited for him to wake up. He could have been sleeping next to me in the bunk on that last morning.

Watching him sleep made me feel better, and I felt my eyes get heavy. I didn’t want to stop looking at Erich; I didn’t know when I would sleep so close to him again. I tried to keep my eyes open for as long as I possibly could, until I drifted off, feeling safer than I had in years.

 

I woke up, I felt like I had been asleep for five minutes, and Erich was shoving me out of bed. It was still dark out, and Erich’s urgency made me panic. He was speaking in German, but I couldn’t have understood him if I tried. As I scrambled up from the floor, he managed to switch to English.

“Come on, get up! You have to get out of here!” He was over by the wardrobe, frantically pulling clothes from the drawers. “They’ll be looking for me soon. Here, take my old coat.”

I rushed for my pants and shirt, still disoriented. “What time is it?”

Erich looked at me like that was the stupidest question he had ever heard. “It’s almost four. I’ve got watch, and they’ll come find me if I’m late. You have to go! Down the fire escape!”

I nodded, pulling on his huge coat, and made for the window. It was freezing outside. “Bloody hell!” I hissed without meaning to. “What I am supposed to do?”

Erich came to the window, pressed his forehead to the top windowpane. If it weren’t for the glass, he would have been a centimeter from me. “Get inside the wall and wait for me there,” he whispered. “Don’t talk to anyone, understand? You’re dressed like a soldier so don’t act suspicious. If anyone asks, say you have watch duty and keep walking. Can you say that in German?”

“Ja, Wachdienst,” I answered automatically.

“Good, now go. Wait for me where we found Hersch last night, okay?”

I wasn’t okay. Erich was sending me out into the ghetto, and if I got caught I would never see him again. I couldn’t stand the idea that my last moment with Erich might be spent with him barking orders at me through a plane of glass. Without thinking about it, I put my hand up to the window. Erich just stared at the hand for a second, then, uncertainly, he lifted his own and pressed his palm to the glass on the other side. My hand was still so small next to his. For a second, I thought if it weren't for the glass I would have kissed him right there, certain that at that moment Erich wouldn't be able to deny his feelings anymore. He took a deep shaky breath.

“Be safe.”

I couldn’t even respond; there was just too much to handle. I pulled my hand away and dashed down the fire escape.

As I walked briskly through the dark, freezing streets towards the wall, all I could think about was Erich’s hand on the other side of the glass. He had felt what I felt right then: fear. He was afraid that we wouldn’t see each other again. He was afraid of telling me how he felt, but, at least for that second, he had been more afraid that he would never be able to tell me.

I couldn’t be scared anymore. On that dark, cold street, I was suddenly light and warm and flying towards the wall. 

Reviews

[Arianna]

you are an unfair person i hope you know this.
im not even really sure how you manage to write things that are so amazing and make me want to cry and grin at the same time.
but you do it.
im not even sure my brain can function well enough to review that because im too overwhelmed with being sad, and happy, and freaking goodness gracious gabe is too perfect to even exist.

[Bexfinch]

read this :) Im going to go back and revie w foreals