"I'll come back for you, I promise."
He held my hands with both of his. "But for now, I have to do this."
"Have to? Really?" I couldn't mask the bitterness that dripped from my voice.
"Emma, you need to understand, it does not feel right for me to just sit around here in this house, safely, being fed by some woman, living normally on a day that keeps repeating and repeating while my fellow men die in a war I can help fight!"
He sat on his bed and buried his face in hands. "I feel like I'm betraying them." I realized that by them, he meant his family.
I sat next to him, which was when I felt hot tears streaming down my cheeks. "Let me come with you."
His head snapped up as if what I just said was the worst thing anyone could have said. His sad eyes turned quickly to raging and it scared me. "No! I want to take you with me, badly I do, but I won't. I can't risk you..."
"Dying? Abe, do you know what came to my mind first when you told me you wanted to fight the war? What if he dies? What if he doesn't make it? Have you thought about that, huh? Have you thought about how we would all feel when, and I hope to God it doesn't, it happens? Have you thought about how I would feel?" After having said it, I realized I had sounded selfish. But I didn't care. All I wanted was for Abe to stay.
"I won't.." He didn't sound assuring.
"You don't know that." My voice broke. I heaved and sobbed. It all felt too unfair. I felt his arms around my shoulder.
"I'll write to you everyday. I promise. I'll send you photographs. I'll make a life outside this loop for us, then I'll come back for you. We'll live the rest of our lives normally." It all sounded too much, that even thinking about living normally was hard. How could people like us live like common people? How could we leave this house forever? But I believed him. I believed he will be back. I believed all the things he said.
For a long time, I believed him.