"Don't touch me!"
The words spring unbidden from his lips in a panicked rush.
He regrets it immediately as she withdraws her hand quickly, but he can't find the words to explain himself. He just looks past her as her eyes flicker over his face – slightly hurt, slightly worried – but never understanding. They never understand.
She begins to say his name, and he can't stand the pity in her voice, so he cuts her off.
"Don't," he tells her. He wishes it sounded kinder, but these days everything he says sounds like a command.
The silence stretches like elastic, ready to snap at any second. He knows she's thinking what to say, trying to comprehend his actions, trying to sympathise with him, rather than feel hurt by his curtness. And it's all his fault.
Probably he should make it up to her, apologise, but he can't bring himself to speak. It all sounds so pitiable in his head, so instead he continues to avoid her eyes and wonders what she'll say, and how he'll ruin it.
After a deep breath, she settles on telling him that she's just trying to help. He already knows this, and it doesn't help in the slightest. If anything, it just makes the whole thing worse.
He knows what he's supposed to do. He's supposed to break down and tell her how hard it all is, and how lost he feels, and then finish off by apologising a dozen times.
Perhaps once he would have done that. Or perhaps not.
She's waiting for it, the gut-wrenching tragic speech. He sighs irritably.
"Listen," he begins, but this time she cuts him off.
"I know," she says, and there's something bitter in her tone. Bitter or sad, he can never tell.
What does she 'know'? Of course there are things that they both realise. That something's changed. Something irreparable has been crushed, like a shard of glass crushed by a rock. It's crumbled now, everything's shattered. Even if the pieces were stuck back together, it would never be quite the same. Just a distorted new version of the past.
He wonders if she does know that.
Strange really. Almost funny. That mere memories, thoughts and dreams can undo even the most complicated knot. It's unfair, to have that power.
She looks despairing now, and he realises he hasn't looked her in the eye once yet.
"Don't. Don't look at me like that," he says. Again, it sounds like an order. Brief, cold, insulting.
She stares at him for a long time, as if trying to decipher something, and he forces himself to stare back. Eventually she tells him, "You've changed."
That much is obvious. He agrees silently, against his will. He'd like to believe that he's remained utterly unperturbed, completely unchanged. But it's a lie; it's such a huge lie, that he can't even convince himself.
"Thanks," he replies sarcastically.
When she leaves, he doesn't know whether to feel relief or regret. Instead he just feels angry. Undirected, passionate anger. It's one of the few emotions that he can understand anymore, so he relishes it.
It helps, too. The anger. Helps because then he can convince himself that the tears are just part of the fury.
…..
There is a moment of silence, and then he eventually speaks. "Is it supposed to be this hard?"
The room is perfectly clear, every corner illuminated by the cold sun shining through the window. He watches the specks of dusts floating in the light. "Am I supposed to be this pathetic?"
Another pause, and then he gives a harsh laugh. "Doesn't even make sense, does it? I fought in a bloody war, dammit, and now look at me! I'm nothing, I'm nobody. Just another poor sod that went to France, you know it's true."
Slowly he gets up and walks to the window. "This is what happened to me. Because of this bloody war. This. Bloody. War," he puts a fist against the wall, "The bloody war I didn't even want to fight in!"
There's another split second silence, before he adopts a conversational tone. "They taught us the quickest way to kill? Where to aim. To save bullets, you see. So we could kill more. To kill some stranger, some damn German I don't even know! A man who's done nothing to me!"
With a smash, he sweeps something off the mantelpiece, the shattering sound painfully loud in the quiet room. She moves for a second, as if to get up, but then stops. His voice gets angrier.
"And I… I don't even feel guilty. We're not meant to feel, you know, guilt or sympathy. Just kill. Like a machine. And I did. You're talking to a cold-blooded killer! Trying to help- "His voice sounds scornful at the word, "Help him. What do you think you'll do, exactly? 'Save' me? It's pointless, why won't you give up?"
He paces around for a minute and then looks at her with a frown. She doesn't know if he's really seeing her. "So why are you still here? Why don't you just get out? Get out right now! Go! For god's sake," His voice cracks slightly, "Why won't you?"
…
He's walking around with no fixed idea of where he's heading. For some reason, it's a strangely difficult concept to master just at that moment: destination. It probably shouldn't be that challenging, but he finds that all he can focus on is the ground on which he's walking. The way that the leaves crackle under his shoes. It sounds a bit like a fire, and his mind flashes back to a burning French house. It's odd how similar they sound. There's something rather comforting about the familiarity.
The leaves are brown, as if charred. He picks one up absent-mindedly and tightens his hand around it, feeling the dead leaf splinter easily. When he unclenches his fist the fragments flutter to the ground like ashes, and blend in to the rest once more.
He knows she's there before he sees or hears her. They're like that sometimes. He tenses, dreading the prospect of another conversation. It'll all end badly, he just knows it. Irrationally, he contemplates, if he doesn't acknowledge her, whether maybe she'll go away.
Of course it's never like that.
The moments draw out longer, like a drop leaving a trail as it slides down the window, and he realises that she hasn't said anything at all. She's just walking beside him. He's surprised. He expected another confrontation – although the word doesn't seem to fit. But he doesn't consider that. It makes him feel uneasy.
They walk for some time, that deep silence saying everything that needs to be said.
After a while they pass a fallen tree, beginning to rot. All its leaves have curled and dried. He wonders vaguely what happened to it. Not that he really cares. It's just a tree.
Perhaps she's a mind-reader, because she suddenly tells him, "It fell over in a storm. They're going to plant a new one."
Why, he ponders tetchily, did she feel the need to tell him that? Of all the things she could have said. It's just a tree. Why should he care about a tree? Then he stops. He never used to get annoyed by small things like that.
"I've got to get back," she continues, "Are you coming?"
Why does she still ask that? It's not as if he ever says yes. Honestly, hasn't she learnt by now? She just never gives up. It's infuriating, as he constantly reminds himself. Although he feels a bit of security as well, for some reason. He hates that.
But what will he do if he stays here? Well, he already knows the answer to that. He'll just walk around aimlessly, hating the world and feeling generally sorry for himself. He'll just be stuck here with a dead tree. And then next time, he'll stay again, and again and again. For the rest of his life?
Now there's a sorry thought.
Just as he's thinking that last thing, he realises he's replying.
"Yes," he's saying, "Yes, I'll come."
He looks up and they lock eyes for what feels like the first time. She's taken aback and obviously trying to hide it. It's rather amusing. The smile feels foreign on his lips. She smiles back, pleased and hopeful again.
Of course immediately they look away and pretend nothing happened. Instead they wander slowly up to the house again, and leave everything behind.