the market is nearly empty when the truck arrives. there's only two stalls set up and she's the only customer. as the rumble of the truck nears the girl turns. the engine slows to a quiet murmur and she stills, holding her breath, shoulders tensed. there's no way of knowing, she thinks, no way of knowing at all.
she watches silently as people start to get out. it's with a sickening sense of guilt that she wonders if they can even be considered people anymore. the first person that gets out is someone she recognises, an older boy, though he wasn't even really a boy, even before he went off to lose everything for nothing in return. the son of a farmer, his father well known and well respected, as is he. he looks a right mess, filthy and weary, looking older than he is by years. he's as strong as he used to be, it seems, which is probably why he got out of the truck first, she figures, as she watches him lift another boy-man-wreck out of the vehicle. she recognises him too, knows that the two have been friends since birth and will be friends until they die. she's glad they both made it out alive, but that feeling withers and shrivels when she notices the distinct lack of legs below the knee.
another boy steps out, a face she recognises distantly but to which she cannot place a name. she stands perfectly still, fruit stand long forgotten as she holds her breath. he's the youngest of the regiment, would barely be out of high school if he had gone. none of them had, really, with no one having the money or the need. no use for an education around these parts, and no one left for anything better. you were born here and you died here, unless you were lucky enough to die painfully, alone, miles away from a friendly face. if she hadn't been staring she wouldn't have even noticed the two missing fingers on his left hand. he's tall for his age yet now more than ever he looks so small, his pale gaunt face not doing him any favours. he looks so young. he is so young.
he's followed by a girl who, apart from being filthy, looks to be fine. another boy steps out and he is much the same. she's seen them around but never gotten to know them, probably never will. no one's really in the mood for small talk nowadays. a guy stumbles out of the truck, spitting vulgarities at a girl trying to help him. they were both a bit older than her, she thought, but not by much. he turns away from her and she catches a good look at his face. half of it being scarred and raw doesn't stop him from glowering at her as he stomps past, empty sleeve swinging. no one follows him.
she is still holding her breath. the boy, the unharmed boy who is probably a farmer's son, she thinks, because aren't they all a farmer's son or daughter, reaches out a hand to the truck and says something she cannot hear. a hand is placed in his and someone steps out of the truck. she ignores the trucks engine revving as it makes to leave, ignores the fact that almost thirty people had left and only eight returned, because her breath catches in her throat as she sees the last person to leave the truck. looking absolutely haggered, yet just as beautiful as the day she left. she moves forward, everything she wants to stay stuck in her throat, able to only choke out a name.
the other girl turns, but doesn't quite look at her, eyes unfocused, and it takes everything she has to not break down into tears right there.
-
oh sure we get used to it. it's what i think to myself, what everyone thinks to themselves and says to each other, and it's a lie. how do you get used to this? to being home, being reunited, being broken? nothing is the same. and yet i still call her 'lover girl' as some pathetic grasp at normalcy. i'm pathetic.
lover girl doesn't go home. it's too loud there, too tense and she probably isn't welcome back, she tells me in a voice far too shaky and quiet. there's a lot that's too something about her now, yet also not enough. poor lover girl. i try my best to help her, to accommodate for her, but it's clear i don't know what to do and that she resents the need to be helped. hates being guided around the house by the elbow because everything is a blur to her now and hates having to sit down every time she does something more exerting than walking. my poor lover girl. the poor lot of them really. some of them have stuck together, the rest going home to their too quiet too nervous families who won't look them in the eye.
i bet they resent it all too.
one of them definitely resents everything and everyone in this tiny rundown town, everything and everyone in this war torn poverty stricken country. he stays at home alone, yells and curses at anyone who comes around, wails and screams at night. one of them came around one day, not my business to know who or when, to talk to dear lover girl. they talk about how the crazy bastard lost his arm and half his face, how he had to drag around the still attached mangled pieces for days, how he almost died of infection. i couldn't bear to hear it, but that didn't stop me from hovering outside the room to listen.
after the third night in a row that lover girl wakes up screaming she tells me what happened. the mine some poor soul stepped on, how the blast threw her back twenty metres and how she cracked her head open on a rock. how there weren't even any pieces of him to bury. she can't really see now, only lights and shadows, gets headaches and migraines and gets woozy, gets night terrors and flinches when she hears a loud noise. we can't go on walks anymore, for those reasons and then some. the most devastating to her personally is the constant tremors in her hands. my poor poor lover girl, she used to play cello, oh so beautifully, used to serenade me with her music. now she barely even speaks to me.
...
i love her all the same