Come Back To Us - 12. Chapter 12

Karl’s being was filled with a feeling he had forgotten for a while as he could see the sun shining again and illuminating the grim buildings.

Snow hadn’t disappeared yet, but the sun would help make it melt.

However this feeling of satisfaction soon faded away. Karl couldn’t stop staring out of the window. He knew he had to move, to get to work; but his mind was too far away. His brain and heart were too heavy for that. Whenever he was in the dorms and not talking to Jørgen, he would stare into the void with empty eyes, getting lost into his restless thoughts for way too long.The conversation he had had with the Lieutenant General a few days earlier hadn’t been helping at all to lessen them. He would replay in his mind every word each of them had pronounced, over and over again.

He needed to know more. He needed to be sure.

Once night had fallen, he went to see the Lieutenant General. He replied instantly after he knocked on his door.

“Hey,” he greeted the man with a monotone and quiet voice.

The man stared at him as if he already knew exactly why he was there.

“Come in.”

He went to sit on his bed without asking for permission. But he knew the man would have told him to do so anyway. The man approached him with slow steps after he closed the door. He examined him closely, probably waiting for him to speak first. But he didn’t know how he should start. He replayed their conversation once again in his head, thinking it might have helped.

“I’m sorry for last time. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

He looked up at the older man who looked quite surprised by his words, one more time.

“You know, when I asked you if you had found that one person-”

“That’s fine, really. I’m not mad at you for it if that’s what you thought.” He paused before he started speaking again. “But I guess you didn’t come here only to tell me that, let alone for a reading lesson, am I wrong?”

Karl kept quiet as he looked down again.

“You’re still thinking about that boy?”

He glanced at the man, his stomach vibrating with that unpleasant feeling as he mentioned him.

“I wish I could stop, but I just can’t control it.”

The man said nothing, as if he knew there was nothing to say.

“You seem to know a lot of things about love,” Karl said as a way of breaking the silence, even though it was probably not the best way to introduce the topic.
“Well, I’m much older than you, so I have a lot of experience in this field.”

Of course. It was logical.

“What is love?” He suddenly asked. The way he asked it was so plain and so naive, like the farm boy he was.

He didn’t need to say what the man’s reaction to his question was

“Well, love is an abstract concept…”

“A what?”

“Well, let’s say that it’s hard to define because it’s not like an object which you can identify easily, like this bed. You know what it is because it’s there, it’s concrete, you can define it and you can sit on it. See what I mean? Love can’t be touched, can’t be seen, it can only be felt by two people. Most people think that there’s nothing easier than living someone, but it’s actually much more complex than that. It’s fickle and can be easily mistaken with other feelings.”

“Like?”

“Admiration, infatuation, attraction,” he shrugged slightly after he said that.

Okay…this wasn’t really helping him so far…

He tried to think about people who loved each other but couldn’t come up with anything great… His parents weren’t really a good example of true love… Well, his father seemed to really love his mother, at least he respected her.

“But…how can you know you have found it…? I mean how can you be sure that you fell in love with the right person and that it will last until the end?”

“Once you find that person, you will just know. It may sound stupid and meaningless, but trust me. I know what I am saying. There is just that special bond that connects you with them, like a kind of invisible thread. That’s a bond so strong that you can’t cut it, no matter how hard you try.”

A special bond…? Well, he had none with George…

“So sex and love have nothing to do with each other, right ? Because if you really love someone you don’t want just to have sex with them. I mean how can one claim to love someone when they can’t do without sex ?”

“Of course, all people who love each other have sex. This is how babies are made. But you can also have sex and not love each other, this is a possibility.”

Yeah, his brother had already explained to him that he wasn’t born in a cabbage…

“But how can you make the difference between someone who truly loves you and someone who just does that to satisfy their biological needs? Love should have nothing to do with sex.”

“You just know, I mean, you just feel it. Hence why we use two different terms to make the distinction: ‘make love’ and 'have sex’. When you make love, you respect your lover because you love them, you can whisper sweet nothings in their ear to remind them how much you love them. Your behavior won’t be the same at all. You will become vulnerable, let out your emotions, be considerate because the well-being of your partner is much more important than your own satisfaction. Your movements will be soft, slow and full of love, instead of just penetrating for raw sex. This is how you make the difference between the two, to sum it up.”

He grabbed the scratchy blanket and squeezed it with a shaky hand.

If he had accepted to have this kind of relationship with George in the first place, it was so he wouldn’t try to kill himself again and because his lower region begged for the attention of George’s mouth.

But strangely he had never been. He had never felt that disgusted to have this kind of relationship with him… he bit his lower lip as his lips formed a thin line. His breath became ragged. And he started feeling dizzy. There was something…soothing…?…in the way they used to kiss and touch each other and sleep into each other’s arms… Something that always managed to make him forget he was far from home, from his family, that it was war.

But he had kept doing it as long as George was satisfied with it. His whole body shivered as a sudden realisation dawned on him.

He had always cared about George’s well being.

But the question was… why?

He hated thinking about it constantly without being granted the chance to rest for a bit. He stared at the floor without blinking as he could only think about George himself.

“Is there a reason for it?” He suddenly said as he was still staring blankly at the floor.

“For what? The distinction between love and sex?”

He was so focused on that spot on the floor that his eyes were starting to squint.

“No. I mean love. Why is love so important for people? It’s not only to have babies, right?”

He glanced at the man who was looking thoughtful.

Maybe he was just asking too many questions. Maybe inside his head he was thinking how irksome he was being…But he didn’t say anything about it because his education made him know how to behave properly.

“There is a myth from Ancient Greece that dates back to Antiquity which could account for this quest of the one and true love. During that time, legend has it that there were three species of beings. Males, females, and another race called ‘androgynous’, who were neither male or female but a mix of the two. But they were not like males and females like we have known them for centuries. Those three species were double. Two men, two women, and the androgynous, male and female to make it simpler, but they shared the same body. They all had two faces, four arms, and four legs, ears and hands as well. Their body was spheric, round, like the Moon and the Sun, thanks to which they were made. Male was shaped after the Sun, female after the Earth, and the androgynous after the Moon. But those species were said to be arrogant and conceited. And because of their feeling of omnipotence, they challenged the Gods. So, as a punishment, the Gods cut them in half so they would learn to become humble. Hence why we have been shaped like this from that day onwards. And that’s also why people have been looking for their other half, the one that can make them feel complete.”

Karl just kept staring at him blankly after he stopped speaking. This was a lot of information to assimilate…. His lips were forming a thin line again as his eyebrows were furrowed and his face expressionless. He had trouble imagining men, women, and this “androgynous” species as he had just described them…They would be…ugly…?

“Don’t look so disgusted. It’s only a legend. There is no concrete proof that this really happened and that they really used to exist.”

But this made sense as he kept rethinking about it more deeply. That “special bond that connects you with them, like a kind of invisible thread.”
Karl’s gaze got lost into emptiness once again.

“So this could explain why women can be attracted to other women, and men to other men and then…fall in love…?”

If you reasoned like that, it made a lot of sense too. Maybe it wasn’t only a legend after all…

“Yes, it definitely could.”

He’d never thought he’d be so interested in such a complex subject which he used to think was only a girl thing. What had happened to him? Where had his carelessness and happiness gone?

He had no idea.

“I guess I just need to choose the right person then.”

“You don’t choose who you fall in love with. It just happens.”

Karl furrowed his eyebrows again and bit the tip of his tongue.

“What do you mean “its just happens”? You can’t fall love with someone you don’t choose.”

But the man didn’t seem to agree with him with the look he was giving him. He glanced at the floor as he was looking deep in thought and a bit concerned.

“Love is not something you can control. If anything, it controls you. It consumes you. It can bring out the best in you just like it can reveal the darkest parts of you which you didn’t know existed until you couldn’t recognize yourself anymore.”

His words didn’t really make him want to fall in love with anybody actually…

“The most beautiful kind of love is falling in love with someone you’d never thought you could ever love.”

This was something way too unpredictable for him…Too much a nuisance…

“But then, if those people couldn’t fuck, how could they make babies?”

The man was staring at him as if he had just said something stupid. But it seemed he was mistaken because after a few seconds he smiled, the kind of smile which made the crinkles by his eyes stand out.

“I guess they didn’t need to.”

He wasn’t sure he could explain it, but there was something soothing in the way he smiled, something that told him that everything was going to be alright, even if it wasn’t going to be. It was like Mr. Hopkins’s.

He didn’t know what to say anymore now as he glanced down.

“Thanks for listening to me and answering my questions. I’m not gonna bother you any longer.”

“You haven’t been disturbing me at all. You know, time is awfully long and painful when you have to spend it all alone.

He didn’t want to imagine how he felt when he was alone… Loneliness was such a terrible feeling…The lack of love, the boredom, the endless torturing thoughts, and that inner voice in you that keeps telling you that you’ve made only bad decisions so far…. He was suddenly feeling nauseous.

“I can stay with you if you want.”

It was plain, with no hidden agenda.

The man’s look in his eyes was grave. But there was that something in them that showed his words didn’t leave him unmoved.

“It’s nice to propose, but I’ll be alright. People would find it weird anyway.”

What was weird in keeping someone company to avoid being driven mad by solitude?

“I mean you shouldn’t feel obliged. If you don’t need my lights anymore, you should go back to your dorms, it’s getting quite late.”

Karl wasn’t so sure he would have other questions about such complex topics. But they would still have their reading lessons, he reminded himself.

He nodded at him before he stood up from the bed and made his way to the door. As his hand grabbed the knob he turned around and locked eyes with him.

“I’ll see you later then.”

“Yeah. Good night.”

“Good night.”

On the way back to his dorms he came across Edgar. He hadn’t seen him in a while.

“Hey, what are you doing here so late?"

He wasn’t sure it was such a good start….

“Walking…?”

Karl didn’t like the look in his eyes. He didn’t look annoyed or like he was going to shout at him, but he didn’t like it anyway. He started slightly as the English youth burst into laughter after a few seconds of eerie silence.

“You know you’re quite funny, don’t you?”

He hadn’t meant to be funny…

“I could ask you the same.”

He didn’t want to say the word “question” because he could never get the pronunciation right. It was one of the hardest words to pronounce.

“I’ve been working late for the last few days. Nothing really exciting.”

“Oh.”

A few moments of silence passed.

“I think we haven’t seen each other since that time when you had got into a fight.”

Yes, he was right. He hadn’t meant to avoid him but he guessed they had both been too busy to meet again.

“You know, I never meant to do anything against you, I know you weren’t the bad bloke in the story.”
“It’s fine. I know.”

Edgar stared at him wordlessly as if he were trying to read his mind.

“Come on, let’s walk for a bit.”

They had a long walk through the hallways. It was still too cold to go outside anyway.

After he thought of the conversation he had just had with the Lieutenant General, he thought about the Hopkins’s family, Emma, and suddenly he thought about Jojo.

He hadn’t seen him again since that time when they had gone outside for a walk, when they had come across that cat, after George had tried to kill himself….

He wondered if he was alright along with the others. Well, as long as Margaret kept replying to his weekly letters, it meant they were all fine, well, at least that she was.

Then he thought about Paul’s friend. That same attitude he had had towards him the last time they met, not so long ago. He’d like to understand why he acted that way.

“Arthur…you know him?”

He wasn’t going to ask everyone the same question, two people was already enough.

Edgar glanced at him.

“You mean Arthur, the Group Captain, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“We are close only in professional terms. He was my mentor. He trusts me enough to ask for pieces of advice from me. But I don’t know anything personal about him. Neither does he about me. And honestly I don’t think he cares. He’s all about work.”

“But do you know why he is so…”

He couldn’t find the right word in English…

“Haughty? Edgar shrugged. “‘Must be his upbringing.”

“Upbrin…ging…?”

“Yeah. The way you were raised by your parents, you know.”

Oh yeah. He saw what he meant.

“You don’t choose your family,” he added.

Karl looked down as he thought about his own family. No you don’t get to choose your family, but you can choose who you want to be with.

No, wait, apparently you can’t choose who you fall in love with, but if that means spending the rest of your life with them…

He thought about George…again…He couldn’t do anything about it…

He can’t be the one…

No, he couldn’t be.

Hey!
I hope you've all had a wonderful weekend and that you've enjoyed this chapter as well 😊
Nothing to do with the story itself, but... anyone to give me advice about a tricky situation by message? Thank you if so!
Have a good day/evening/night and take care ❤️