I’ve never looked so pale. I’ve been pale before, I’ve been pale all of my life, even. But I’ve just never been this pale. The dark circles under my eyes were way more pronounced than usual, and the exceedingly pale colour of my skin contrasted with my dark hair. To put it into simpler words, I looked sickly. The light of the bathroom wasn’t too flattering either. Art stood in front of the sink next to me, leaning over and splashing his face with water. I looked over to him and my eyes locked in place, just by tired reflex. He leaned his head against his hand and inhaled. After a relatively short amount of time, Art stopped what he was doing and looked up.
“Are you okay?” he muttered. There were a lot of other people in the bathroom.
I nodded. He smiled and wiped his face with a towel, hanging it up and leaving the room. I went into the sleeping room and sat down on my bed. Simon passed me and smiled a little. I did the same back. Art finally entered the room. He climbed up the two beds that arrived before his own and stopped as he was leveled with me, leaning over a little.
“Good night, James,” Art smiled. He paused and leaned in even further. “Meet me in the bathroom five minutes after lights out,” he whispered.
My eyes went wide. “Art, we’re not allowed to… I mean, are we even…?”
Art shrugged. “Be there, Baxter.” He climbed up to his own bed.
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I involuntarily nodded. I don’t even remember thinking about nodding. The hold he has on me is insane. I lay down in my bed and anxiously wait for the lights to turn off. Art Johnson. God, where do I begin? Millions of words itch to spit out whenever I try to talk about him. One thing concerns me, though. Does he feel the same way as me? Do the words in his head drain out when he tries to talk to me? Does his heart swell when I look at him? Does his face heat up to the temperature of a furnace when I gaze into his eyes? Does he think about me as much as I think about him? It’s eating me up on the inside. Will he even still love me when the war is over? Does he only talk to me because I’m accessible? Maybe I could ask him in five minutes. I don’t understand why love has to be such a taboo subject. It makes my stomach churn just imagining the conversation that follows the question ‘do you really love me?’. It would just make everyone’s lives so much easier if we could talk about our feelings without that black cloud of shame following everyone. And then my heart began pounding. This is it. I was going to tell him everything I was questioning about us. The millions of questions passed through my brain, but the main one that stuck out was ‘do you love me as much as I love you?’. And Goddamn, does he know how much I really do adore him? It’s really embarrassing. So much so, I’d rather not speak of it. Rehearsing what I’m going to say to him in advance, I stirred in my bed. Lights are out, five minutes until I have to get up and go to the bathroom to test out these newly found words to his face… and see a reaction. A reaction that I definitely do not want to see on the count of he might not feel the same way, and I’ll just be some love-struck idiot with a permanent frown and a broken heart. I was so scared there, that for a minute, I forgot about the war. Maybe I liked it better that way, when my biggest problem was what I was going to say to him, rather than being shot by a German. Maybe I really did like it better that way. I was counting backward in my head, but there’s no clock, so I’m not really sure when I’m supposed to… go. I was just going to wait until Art got up. Just as I thought that, he got up, carefully crept past me and Simon, leaving the room and pushing the door gently with two fingers. After about fifteen seconds, I got up and did the same, heading for the bathroom. As soon as I walked in, I saw him leaning against the sink. He smiled at me when he noticed my presence. I walked further into the room, a little nervous seeing as I didn’t know if we were allowed to be here. I’m not sure what they would do if we broke a rule, but I sure as hell would not like to find out. I went over to where he was and stood next to him. There was a silence.
“James, I just wanted to warn you…” he started.
I looked over at him with a hint of curiosity.
“You said you loved me, and that’s really swell and all…”
“I’m not sure if you love me too,” I said on impulse, interrupting him.
He looked surprised.
“What? Why wouldn’t you be sure?”
“I… don’t know. I just don’t feel like you devote the same amount of brain space to me as I do to you. I don’t feel like you spend so much time rehearsing what you’re going to say to me, like I do with you… I just don’t feel like you really mean it like I do.”
“Maybe it’s for the best if I don’t,” he paused for a long time, leaving my heart to sink lower than the bottom deck of the boat. “But I do.”
I looked up at him with hope.
“James, I wanted to warn you that we can’t be together forever… I’m not coming home from this war,” he said, looking away from me.
“You might… don’t be pessimistic.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. I mean I’m really not coming home. I just can’t go back there. And if the war doesn’t kill me, I’ll do it myself. I really just can’t ever go back home.”
The room was quiet. Especially thanks to the pause.
“How is it so bad?” I asked.
“You wouldn’t understand… Just don’t worry about it.”
I sighed loudly and turned around to face him.
“Art! You never tell me anything! Why do you always assume that I won’t get it, or that I won’t care to know? I care about you, Art, so I’ll care about what you have to say! And I will get it : I had pretty bad parents too, I lived in New York too, I’m queer too, I got sent to this war too! Art, for God’s sake, just, please, talk to me!”
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He looked sad as he tried his best to avert my gaze. He had tears building in his eyes. I felt bad for ‘raising my voice’ (I didn’t yell, the others would hear, so I mumble-yelled) at him. But only a little. It’s rude to say, but he really does just never talk to me, ever. Does he think it’s funny to have me crawling at his feet, saying yes to his every request and blindly following him to the ends of the earth, without actually having to talk to me? I bet he likes that. I’m not implying that he’s a bad person, just that he’s a smart one. Anyone would do the same if they had a weak, smitten man at their feet, just begging to be kicked over and over again until he dies. Oh, God, Art, kill me before I die, I don’t want to watch. I might even be the same if I had some infatuated idiot at my feet. But Art isn’t infatuated or an idiot. I’m the idiot. I’m not surprised to be the idiot. I’m disappointed in myself, though. He finally looked over at me and placed his hand on my forearm. He then smiled at me with warmth and looked down apologetically.
“I do do that a lot, don’t I…” he said.
“Start a sentence and don’t finish it?” I asked and he nodded. “Yeah, you do.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could explain everything to you, but we don’t have that much time.”
“We have until the end of the war, that’s a pretty long time.”
He smiled. “I guess so. Maybe you’re right. I will tell you, James, I promise. On my life.”
“The one you want to lose?”
“I said I promise on my life, not on my death.”
I stayed quiet for a bit. “Don’t die.”
He exhaled. “I can’t go back home…”
“Then don’t! You don’t have to! Live somewhere else, please, Art… please.”
“There’s someone at home I really can’t see, and if I do, it’s all over.”
“What’s over? Who can’t you see?”
“I really don’t feel like talking about it.”
I was surprisingly very angry. It’s not that he wasn’t talking to me that was making me upset, it was the motive behind not talking to me. It’s like I’m not even that important to him. I don’t mind if he doesn’t care about me as much as I care about him, but I don’t have to stick around to watch. I looked him in the eye and just nodded, trying my best to be understanding.
“Then don’t,” I said, turning around and walking away.
“No, no, James, please please…” he said quickly.
“You don’t have to talk just as much as I don’t have to listen,” my own words were surprising to me. I didn’t realize that I could be cold to Art in any way.
“James, please…Please, I…I need you, I really do, please listen,” he said, his sentence wobbling with the presence of tears.
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I knew I was strong enough to (almost) walk out, but I knew I wasn’t strong enough to listen to him cry and continue to walk out. I turned around and pulled him into a hug. He latched onto my shirt and held it tight. Crying into my shoulder, he mumbled something inaudible. I tried to comfort him and told him not to say anything. His hair smelled like vanilla, which was strange because of the war being…everywhere and all. Everything on this boat either smelt like fish or socks, but Art’s hair smelled like vanilla. He pulled away, and looked me in the eyes, still exploding with tears. His whole face was wet and he held onto my forearms tightly.
“James, I’m so sorry… I love you, I do, I…” he was struggling with speech and rambled a lot.
I put my hand behind his head and pulled him back for another hug.
“I’m scared…” he said between sobs, his words not coherent anymore. The only words I could detect were : ‘scared’, ‘sorry’, ‘losing you’ and ‘can’t’.
We pulled away from the hug again and I wiped away his tears with my thumb as he continued to sob. His cries got quieter and quieter until he stopped, his eyes stuck on my shoulder.
“I’m…sorry,” he said, pointing at said shoulder.
I looked at it and saw a big wet spot on my shirt. I laughed a bit.
“Don’t worry about it, it’ll dry.”
He wiped his eyes and sniffled. “I feel so dumb.”
“You’re not dumb.”
“I… I know,” he spoke slowly, “I know I don’t share much, but it’s not because I don’t care… I love you, James, so much, it’s just that I don’t want to talk about it. Since I met you, I feel like a new person…I feel like I don’t have to be the thing one else wants me to be, the thing I’ve been since I was born… I get to be what I want, because you love me enough to let me. And I couldn’t stand to lose you…ever. And if you truly feel the same way as I do, then I’m guessing that you wouldn’t be able to stand losing me. I don’t want to put you through that. But I’m telling you, I can’t go home. I’ll figure something out, I won’t die on purpose. And I don’t really know why you’d think that I wasn’t so incredibly and idiotically head-over-heels smitten and in love with you. You make me so nervous and giddy and… I just love you… a lot.”
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My heart was at the tip of my sleeve. I was so ready to tell him that I was going to devote my life to him, but that was just one of those passing thoughts that you get. It was way too embarrassing to actually say out loud. For a split second there, I imagined a life where I lived past this damned war and went home…with Art. And just like men and wives do, in this vision, we live together and end up spending the rest of our lives together… It’s making me nervous just to imagine me saying that to him. How does one even say that? Hey, Art! I kinda want to marry you, but I know we can’t, and we also can’t live together, but I love you so much and I would die for you, so let’s spend the rest of our lives together…kind of. There is no way in hell I’m saying that. On the bright side, that whole vision of us was a vision constructed in a future where we both survive the war. Which would surprise me. But that’s the first thought that I had in a while where I imagine a future that I can live in. A future where I don’t die. Art finally noticed me zone out and looked side to side, as if he was nervous. He came a half a step closer.
“What? Did I say something…?” he asked with worry.
“Oh, uh, no no, don’t worry…” I paused. “Art, I don’t know why it’s so…difficult for people to talk about their feelings. I mean, not all feelings, just…the ones about…um…love. I would want to say that I’m different, that I have no problem with talking about those things, but I do. I feel just as icky when talking about them, and get just as uncomfortable as everyone else. I just wish it was easier. It’s not easy to admit that… I care about you more than anyone could ever imagine. I love you, and I would do anything for you. We met about a week and a half ago. I’m already prepared to just throw myself at your feet and…I don’t know, lick your boots. Gosh, Art… It’s so ridiculous to say, but I am so in love with you… I’m really happy you feel the same. The way I feel about you is so…odd. I really do find you perfect in every way. I just…” I lifted up his hand and put both of mine on each side of his. “...need you to know that-”
“Hello?” we heard a superior officer say, followed by footsteps.
“Shit,” said Art as his eyes went wide and he grabbed my hand, pulling us into a stall.
We stayed quiet as the officer went in, looking around. He left. Art let out a small chuckle.
“I guess we deserved that,” he whispered.
“Yeah maybe a little,” I whispered, panicked but still smiling.
“So…what do I need to know?” he smiled knowingly.
I suddenly felt like my heart was being clouded over by a stinging feeling of regret. I immediately turned away from him and opened the door to the stall, standing in between the outside of it and the inside. I muttered something along the lines of ‘uhh’. He laughed.
“Would you believe me if I said nothing?”
He laughed again. “Not for a moment, Baxter.”
He stood on his tippy toes, put his hand on the side of my face and kissed me.
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And for a split second, the war didn’t seem so Goddamn important.
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