Chapter 11
Chapter Eleven
My beautiful Lina,
I’m writing this from the barracks because it’s the only place with enough light after sunset. Everything smells like sweat, dust, and whatever they served us for dinner tonight. I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I know it wasn’t food.
Your letter was waiting on my bunk when we got back from drills.
I must’ve read it five times before I remembered to breathe.
You’re wrong about one thing, though.
You’re not being dramatic.
I haven’t felt right since the moment I left. It’s as if someone shifted the whole world and forgot to tell me how to stand properly again. It isn’t home without you. Hell, half my mind is still back on that dirt road where you stood waving like you weren’t seconds from crying.
I keep replaying everything.
The sound of your laugh.
The look on your face when you told me you’d wait for my letters.
The way your hands held my shirt like you were trying to memorize every thread.
No one here understands what we have, and maybe they’re not meant to. My folks still think I’m too young to know what love is. If they knew about you, they’d say it’s foolish. Your mama would say the same. Probably worse.
Let them talk. They don’t know you.
And they sure as hell don’t know how you fit into the quieter parts of me—places I didn’t even know existed until you touched them.
Training is rough. Long days. Short nerves. Too much noise. The guys talk about the future like it’s some far-off place none of us are convinced we’ll reach. Most of them hide their fear by laughing too loudly or roughhousing until someone bleeds.
Me?
I think about you.
That’s how I get through this.
That’s how I keep myself from losing focus.
I still don’t know when we leave. They don’t tell us until they decide we’ve earned the information, and even then, it’s too late to prepare for anything. But I need you to have something solid—something you can hold onto when missing me feels like too much.
So here it is, written so you never have to doubt it:
I will come home to you.
I don’t care how long it takes.
I don’t care what I have to get through.
I’ll write you every chance they let me.
Because I’m not finished loving you either, sweetheart.
Not by a long shot.
Yours,
Thomas