Chapter 296
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
I felt your touch and your warmth for the first time, and for the first time, I laughed together with you.
For the first time in ten years, I thought it was a good thing that I hadn’t died today. Only then did I begin to feel proud of having brought the wounded back alive.
I even thought—just for a moment—that it would be nice if I didn’t die tomorrow either, if I could save people again tomorrow.
It didn’t last long.
As I stood there blankly watching you move on to another patient, I heard Rupert’s voice from afar.
“Dana, my Philomena.”
At his call, you went straight to him.
“My love, you’ve worked hard.”
Worked hard? Rupert hadn’t done anything.
Other battalion commanders went all the way to the trenches, encouraging and tending to their men. I never once saw him do that. I only caught sight of him at dawn, when we were hauling the wounded back. He was standing at the entrance to the camp, smoking and chatting idly with other officers.
And yet, worked hard?
“You’ve worked hard too. Come here.”
When he pulled you into his arms, you cupped his cheek and kissed him.
In that instant, the canteen in my hand felt unbearably pitiful. Even the happiness I’d felt when I accepted it now seemed laughable.
‘That kiss should have been mine. My love. That endearment was meant for me. The man you should be holding right now, it should have been me.’
I was pathetic for still thinking things like that… and honestly, I was tired. When you grow tired of yourself, there’s only one thought left.
I should stop living. That’s how quickly I woke up from the illusion that I wanted to live.
I didn’t leave my room in the rectory all day. At first, exhaustion dragged me into a dead sleep without me realizing it. When I woke, I drank the alcohol you had given me and thought only of death.
I began to reinterpret the reason God had sent me here. Perhaps He found it insolent that I kept begging to die.
‘Lord, even so, was it necessary to kill me this cruelly?’
I was desperate enough to break the vow I’d made never to take my own life.
I regretted not having been issued a sidearm for self-defense. As I thought through my options, I decided to hang myself and rose, walking toward the window.
Just as I was about to drag the chair positioned there, I froze, hearing a sneeze drift in through the gap in the window.
If I hadn’t misheard, it was a woman.
The clearing between the church and the rectory wasn’t a place a woman would visit late at night. It was dark, desolate and this was the heart of a military camp filled with able-bodied men.
Worried, I pulled back the curtain then recoiled and shut it again in shock. The woman sitting on a crate beneath the oak tree had just struck a match to the cigarette between her lips, illuminating her face clearly.
It was you.
When you slipped the cigarettes into your skirt pocket earlier that day, I thought you meant to give them to Rupert. It never crossed my mind that you meant to smoke them yourself.
…Dana, it’s true. Believe me.
Even I found it hard to believe. I wondered if I was drunk and seeing things, so I peeked through the curtain again. I watched for a full hour.
It was you.
I was worried about you. If you’d inhaled so much smoke during the fire ten years ago, your lungs couldn’t be strong, yet you were smoking. And you were alone, in such a dangerous place.
In the end, I sat on the chair I’d meant to use as a platform for hanging myself and watched until you finally left.
‘Will you come again tomorrow?’
If you came there every night to be alone, I would worry. It was a foolish excuse, but worrying about you kept me from dying that night.
You came almost every day. The time varied, but once night fell, you would come to the clearing behind the church, smoke alone for about an hour, then leave. Unlike your usual lively self, in those moments you looked as exhausted and lonely as the dying soldiers.
Then one day, you smoked only a single cigarette before standing up. I thought you were leaving earlier than usual.
Tap. Tap.
I never imagined you were coming this way, to knock on my window. I froze in shock as you stood outside and spoke.
“The moon’s been bright the past couple of nights. Even with the lights off, I can see you behind the curtain.”
You knew I’d been watching you in secret. I wanted to die right there on the spot.
“A priest shouldn’t have a hobby of spying on women, should he?”
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