To Miles 52

What if I never loved Jack and it was all solely me loving someone I had no idea of, keeping a photo ad obsessing with the deceased that I would never talk again to. What if I loved him because I couldn’t anyone else?

Where do we step back to forget? And how long will it be until the thought gets so worn out that we cannot think anymore and why are there so many love and doubts which seem to be cutting deeper and deeper as the days end up tumbling, exposing us more to open thinking and soon enough I catch myself underwater, not wanting to hear of the war’s footsteps on our own and it feels like because we’ve had it once we can always have it again with the same family blood split again, maybe in more reincarnations but the rivers are tainted with far more flesh than water could ever grace it again.

And why do we always end up in mirrors, thinking that nothing ends without a purpose when all people go away and it’s never like a novel where it’s explained and we will never manage to yank the answer out of someone’s teeth if they ever loved us and it feels like a harsher itch on the back, as I shower in the morning, feeling far too reluctant to even do anything, still waiting for the full stories to emerge from Jamie’s mouth as the days and months start tumbling, driving with anxiety, as no one explains what love is and how it tastes besides one. But love is more than one person at times, so does that mean all of it else was false?

And how many ghosts will we encounter at every single night we will meet when we close our eyes, and how much more will we be detached from existing because I will never fit in my head, the blood of those who we have spilled and who we have never known because we all managed to end up existing within the same mind of killing?

Sometimes it’s easier to isolate than to love.

When all cards lay in front of you and you can smell the burnt wood, you’ll never be calm, because you don’t deserve peace upon your hands when others died and you’ve built your happiness on someone’s married bones. I think of Alison far too often and I think of Jamie, who tells me how indeed she had asked him to break up with me and I had my knees up to my chest, it was just new and fresh and because we hadn’t been together for that long, it felt odd to be around him and watch recognizing every aspect of his face, as if it was slowly dawning on me that I had been dating him. It seemed far away, how we had connected and how in some days you can end up counting all the stars in the sky, when people take centuries to even find the right sky.

And when you haven’t been loved in years, a day will seem bizarre. 

And we can make all people lovers, even for a brief moment in the mind.

The morning dazzles as the night goes by, allowing all cards to emerge from the waves and when you’re at sea for long you lose track of time and everything starts being more artificial from the March snow to the May storms which would come. Months don’t make sense as days stretch, stealing stars from the night and I become attracted to smoking on the deck far too much, Jamie joining me often, sometimes I would go alone after his, when the sun seems to know when to peak and the day has started, but I end up stealing a second morning for myself, where I rarely bump into a shaving Jamie, as he avoids all sailors equally and starts everything earlier with Brian and I wonder how long has it been a routine and my own jealousy of the time we don’t spend together properly only to rejoice at the heat of one’s touch later, as if it were to snow again in any place we’d walk.

The ship sometimes becomes so claustrophobic that you can’t seem to not know who is actually banging who and why and cards games start becoming awkward. Every night after a smoke if I head to the bathroom after Jamie’s I would end up on Julian by himself and the first time he had asked me what had I been doing and I lied on really bad insomnia. But the more war seemed to root in everyone’s veins it felt as if some had decided to abstain entirely while others seemed to have a sense of the world entirely crumbling with the Germans breaking through the Maginot line, giving them a harsher paint of victory and actual surreal belief that they would manage to go on, giving everyone else not even the ability to have nightmares any longer. It started becoming a ticking trojan horse which hadn’t even been placed at the territory of France, but managed to make it’s way through the harsh trenches. It felt as if no one would know anything besides a driven bewildered with blood nazi Germany. 

It seemed as if an old classmate who had sat in the back of the class, covered in yesterday’s wounds ended up doing a massacre you could only joke about and in the end the joke was surely not on us now, as we had all watched bodies we should’ve known lay around. It felt even more weird to sail seas which would be drenched in blood soon enough and no one would even dare to say what was going on, besides increasing the news supply and it’s as if we all had slowly started wondering how much would it be left for anyone of us and if we ever had a unity, how could we watch others die but we had killed ourselves within our system and I myself had two deaths of on my hands as when I’d kill a nazi, I’d be doing the same thing, so who do we become if we’d rather kill our own than actual villains? If I had once wished I wasn’t American, I wasn’t sure anymore where I wish I’d be. 

I wondered if Julian would have been my trojan horse, as we seemed to end up being the people who would talk yet had managed to make out briefly once and it’s as if we had placed a cast on something which wasn’t even broken or touched. So it seemed odd to lie to Julian and the more I looked the more I wondered what was wrong with the world which was okay with killing people from anything to homosexuality and why had it become so easy to hate and spill blood as if it were a apple to split open. And why had it become so easy, as if you could get the exact same apple at the stall?

I couldn’t tell him anything and he simply expressed his condolences about Miles, who had been going in and out of my mind, as Jamie picked up the recent height of sailors playing cards right after the last meal, everyone ending up either on money or any other goods, whatever anyone had decided to give up on. Julian always ended up on candy and our unit joined that hype. Jamie and Brian would rarely join and Jamie hadn’t been too good at it, so he ended up leaving the games with the sole excuse which had been seen as him being distant from all of us plebs. Brian would seldom join, a bit more often and would end up playing until late, Jamie clearing his throat that playtime was over. 

Jamie had asked me to practice with him, which didn’t turn out as well as I hadn’t been too good against Brian who was awful at explaining and would still make sure to win against Jamie rather than telling the tricks up his sleeve. In the end Jamie ended up being in the game by the past week or so, at least leaving as anyone else would regardless of luck. 

Julian seemed to hold his tongue but he seemed to watch me and him over as we had been the only ones left and I had only recalled that we barely talked, which ended up with Julian commenting on that and to which Jamie said that concentration is better than nervous chatter from any of us, since we would win a box of chocolate candy Julian himself had smuggled and Carlos’ lipstick which no one denied of getting.

Why do we even need other people and why do we happen to discard so many old lovers? How come they had never made the cut and how had we managed to end up letting them go? How come we can now cross paths and never say anything? And what about those we can never manage to find the courage to because we had tasted them once already and we were defeated because the galaxies in their mind were different with raised hands as they would float on the water. So was that all? Was it because we didn’t want to swim along and our desire to drown alone, to make sure that death would come calmly becoming the main phenomenon of the government in our eyes? So by the end of the day how many people had we needed? How come the closer you get the more scared you get? I could remember Miles’ fingers on my cheek, as he’d sleep next to me, entirely different from Jamie who would cling onto me in his sleep and we’d wake with numb arms. Was it that scared me that someone had found everything inside me after throwing me against the wall? And what had he even known then?

And I couldn’t speak about it to everyone and it felt embarrassing to speak of love so often because just like we don’t know how to fly, I don’t think we know how to love even if we’ve got wings already for the flight and the feathers glitter in the rain. 

Why does the next enemy become fear, fear of you not loving enough after you realize that they love you enough?

Meeting Julian again in the night, made me wonder as he just approached me as I headed to the cubicle, but instead Julian pressed his foot against the door, where I just nodded at him, wondering what was going through the sailor’s head. He fixed his hat, hands in pockets and soon enough he’d need a haircut, but I just looked back into his dark eyes. 

“Who are you fucking around, though?” He asks, as I look around as if the lover would show up somewhere and I quickly recall the bathroom fight between Miles and Jamie. I nearly shrug my shoulders, because I don’t know what to reply, but instead Julian catches up on my silence. “C’mon, Al, we’re friends. I know you and Miles broke up. He’s been mopping around, you’re getting laid apparently since you’re always glowing. At least share the good fuck. Which sailor is it? Is it the new mechanic?”

“No.” I quickly shake my head and I realize that the reply was as if I was confirming that it wasn’t indeed the mechanic, but somebody else. I shake my head again. “I have a lovely time jerking myself good. That good enough?”

I laugh, Julian still looks unmoved and keeps his boot on the door, then puts it down and jumps on the spot, pleading me to tell again. 

“C’mon, I know how to please myself, now leave me alone, I’d like some privacy.” I feel like anything sexual with Julian is like with a puppy these days, but instead he puts his hand on the door. 

“Turner, who are you fucking? C’mon, I won’t steal your boyfriend. C’mon, man, I’m your friend. Why aren’t you telling me?” He pouts and I just stare back at him, a bit square eyed knowing that Jamie’s friends know but none of mine do and for a moment my tongue itches to tell highly, but instead I keep quiet, shaking my head, smiling lightly. I hope I’m a convincing liar. I play up my relationship with Matt which is just half-baked letters these days. “I’m just happy I’m going somewhere with Matt, that’s all.”

That not only satisfies Julian, but as soon as I close the door, he yanks it open, excited to hear all about it. I don’t even know what to tell.

“Tell me, Al, c’mon, how is it?” And my cheeks flush lightly, as I lean against the wall, crossing my arms and I shrug my shoulders, instead he gives me a light punch and leaves his hand there. I look up and he’s in the door frame. I don’t say anything as he just does half a step closer. I try to break the silence.

“What about you and Carlos, though?” Julian just shrugs and looks down. 

“I think he’s a bit confused, because he never was interested in men, we’ve always been friends and then... it just happened we were on shore, just walking around and there was just no one in this park and we just went under a bridge and he grabbed me. Next thing I know I was thinking if I took enough cash for a hotel to be honest.” He confessed, taking his hand away, Julian’s eyes clouded by thoughts of Carlos as I seem to be pushing a suicidal person’s blood back into their system before they can cut again. “And he’s married, so... Typical. Do we all end up with married men? Miles dated some married guy, that didn’t work out. He doesn’t like talking of it even if he said it was a brief affair. I thought it was kind of hot, but then anything is hot if you’re fucking, but kind of...

Stops being so hot when it’s you and you can’t have the person forever.”

And then Julian looks out through the window and even if the deck is illuminated, we can still see that summer is breaking the nut shell of the sky, slowly reminding that if you try hard enough and go enough north we’d be bathing in a never-ending light dream. Julian keeps his eyes on it and I look at him, feeling that I had missed him as a friend, spending all my time with Jamie or trying to juggle through all the left over feelings and what else had been pounding in my head. 

“I hate summer hours. It’s as if there is no night and then you feel like one day just goes into the other, as if you couldn’t sleep anymore and it feels like you’re doing something wrong by going to sleep at this time...” He blinks a few times, rubbing his eyes. Maybe I did feel lonely without goofing around with him since even playing cards everyone had been far too tense and we had all just tried to forget everything, seeing Jamie go a bit loose made us more than aware that everything could crumble harder and harsher than the world had ever seen and we weren’t aware of it. 

-

Originally I was actually preparing myself to write a much longer chapter, but I liked the sudden ending, which is quite... striking and seemed fitting. Recently was 9th May which obviously made me think a lot because just like frankly everyone should (either 8th or 9th is depending on obviously how you should really celebrate it, 9th May should not be erased by anyone who had celebrated it as 9th before). And I had a very strong inner conflict because my first and only WWII novel speaks of the US, yeah, it started off as about the job and still is but it ended up flowing into something more bigger and I understand that I shouldn't be erasing the US' input but with the cold war ideology which is everywhere and awful things like the US saved the world from Nazism just revolts me since they're supporting and rooting it in many places. But it's hard to understand at times that what I write is before the whole cold war era and etc. These people are heroes, back in WWII we had heroes, it didn't matter who you were, you saved us, so yeah. But it's hard obviously. So that makes me uneasy. But I understand that I should differentiate and I do and it also is rather anti-US at the same time and was intended to be so, because the problem was no matter where you were it's awful to be gay. 

I actually love the ending of the Alex/Jack, it's rather harsh and bittersweet but I enjoy it. Jack isn't gone, he'll surely be around, but I like the conclusion to their story and I forget it but people really vanish entirely from your life and somehow you bury feelings. Also Alex/Jack was one of my favourite ships and surely was interesting to tell. 

I think I really ended up falling in love with everything about the story entirely. So kind of rereading to write the backstory I really made sure to speak everything as clear as I could. I was feeling claustrophobic and I used that for the scene. 

Also I think it's obvious that I'll be addressing Julian/Alex now, I was stuck on this odd place where I felt like I didn't know what to write and when that happens I just take really long bus rides and make sure to concentrate on thinking, that was something I started doing ages and ages, but I guess most noted when I started writing fanfiction back in the UK so yeah. But in general I'm awful if you're with me on transport, I barely talk because that's my plotting time and I always listen to music and write notes or chunks or think plots through. So I ended up doing notes for the next chapter of And It's A Dull Monday (which has been posted) and what's left before the actual end of part 1. Frankly there's just one arc which needs to close and a bit of another one but mainly I need to finish off one and to be honest it's also because part 1 ends on a specific historical chosen spot which me and Callie decided. I don't think I'll take a break from To Miles but I'll surely be... sulking for the end of part 1 but it's going to take a good while and after that it goes on and on, so yeah. 

I think I like cracking how to write different genres and etc and kind of writing about the Maginot line made me realize that I do entirely feel comfortable writing historical fiction even if it's harder when I go on events because I need to think how would people react and specifically how the fuck would Alex react. So that kind of made me realize that I could do more stuff and happily, so yeah. Neither do I want to close on WWII since I've always been fascinated by it and To Miles doesn't cover oh so many things and it's just me touching the US navy really. 

Me and Callie started viciously playing cards because she read that it really helps with bipolar and it had, so we've been doing that XD specifically games from my childhood to be honest since Callie took a liking after last year where we ended up playing with my relatives and she seemed amazed by my skills, so she tries to beat me. 

I love Carlos here. I love him too much.

I'm annoyed that the sky doesn't go entirely black at all now, so my frustration was written xD I'm sorry if this backstory was shorter, I literally binged through in a few sittings and I don't want to speak in spoilers and yeah

I kind of ended up setting up everything and I've been depressed so it's rather seen and I've been using that viciously. Also Alex missing Julian was kind of what I had earlier today which is a bit embarassing I guess coz I've been swamped with work I haven't even talked to anyone properly so I ended up having a missing friends void and I'm awful at talking, so even a hi makes my day xD so yeah

If you enjoyed it, please tell me so and I'll love you even more

<3

Jamie