Faith spent a lot of time at Ingleside helping around. As soon as she arrived she couldn't believe. Jem told her about Walter but seeing him in front of her, well, that was strange. She noticed his changes, he wasn't into poetry anymore, he spent al his time helping at home, he worked in the woods and di not touched a pen. He was still nice and caring tho. "Hello Faith, how are you feeling today?" "Good morning Walt, I'm fine thank you. What about you?" "Oh I'm fine, I've been busy helping around" "I've noticed, am I interrupting?" "No, I don't mind, I was going to take a break anyway, let's take a walk"
Faith noticed that he grew up a couple of inches, his hair and eyes stayed the same but everybody could feel that he has changed.
"Are you not cold? It's december" he asked but she shook her head, she was fine. "I am getting married you know, and I'm taking care of leaving my room. I had a huge bookshelf you remember right? Well I don't need all those books anymore, Una has already took the book she wanted so if you want to come over and keep some books you're welcome. I'll probably donate them or throw them away" "I will definitely come serching for new books to read, I need some distractions and helpinga round is so hard, you know that I was not created for things like that" She laughed, on the inside he still was the little boy she used to play with. "I must come home but feel free to come over anytime."
Shirley was reading, he needed some peace after everything happened. He was happy Walter was back but he wasn't actually there. Sometimes his eyes were seeing something else than Ingleside. "Do you mind?" Walter was pointing at the spot near him "Not at all"
They sat in silence, Shirley couldn't focus on his reading anymore and Walter was there like he wanted to say something.
"Did you enjoy flying?" Walter stuttered "You know.. when you were there."
"It was kinda cool, exept the fact that you had to kill people, I think you get the feeling. I was always worried to shoot you or Jem, I couldn't recognize anybody."
"Oh well, that makes sense." "I'm sorry if that brought back some memories-" "Don't, it's not. I was here because I wanted to talk to you but I don't even know what to tell" "It's fine, but everyone is wery worried about you. You act the same but you're not the same, we can see it. I think it's hurting mom, you should talk to tem about this thing. Why did you choose to stay in France? You could've come home. We've been waiting for you."
Walter stayed silent and Shirley was about to apologize. "I was ashamed, to come back" He felt like he could finally breathe "I wasn't brave like you or Jem, you both came home untouched. I wasn't ready to see everything again. When I left I was sure I died, I was sure I had left everything and everyone behing but when I was in France I realized I started looking for you all. At that point it was stupid coming home so I wrote hopping you hadn't moved. The it all ahppened and I got back here, with my body. My mind hasn't come back yet, I'm not in France and I'm not even in the war, my mind is still at the last year before everything happened. Sometimes i get flashbacks about the war but they're not even close at the flashbacks I get when I think about our childhood. And then I realized I had left conversations and people behind and I hardly can' talk to them now. It' about Di, Nan, you, Jem, mom and dad but aslo Una, I fucked everything up." He looked at his brother who was still listening "I'm sorry, I didn't wanted to-" "No, you did wanted to tell this things and I'm glad I was here to hear them, I've missed you, we've all missed you. I know I'm not the best to talk about the Una's thuìing but if you ever want to talk about the war or even Una I will be happy to hear and help." "This evening me and Jem were planning to do a boy's night, wanna come?"
