Herschel's Log - Entry Seventeen

Herschel’s Log

Friday, May 23, 1941

To Kristen,

            Everything fell apart. I don’t know what to do. It’s all wrong. I feel sick. I feel like my whole soul is just pouring out of my body, like everything I’ve ever believed is being torn to shreds inside my chest.

            Jim and Rebecca.

If you were here, maybe you would be able to tell me how I could have let this happen. You were the one who always said that it was my intuition that would save me, that sometimes you felt like I looked right through people into their souls. How could you have been wrong?I trusted Rebecca. I trusted Jim. God, my best friend. Not just my sister, but my best friend. How could they do this to me? How could they keep this from me?

            I don’t mean anything to them, Kristen. Don’t they know that they are the only two people in the world who I cared about? All I ask for, in the entire universe, is for two people to care what happens to me. Why is that too much to ask? Why is everything I could possibly ask for always too much to ask? If I thought now that there was any chance that God was watching me, I would look up there and ask why he takes away everything I have ever cared about.

            Neither of them even noticed me in the door; can you believe that? I just stood there in the doorway, watching that b*****d put his dirty hands all over my sister, and not one of them even looked up. I should have said something. Goddamn it, Kristen, why can’t I ever get the words out? If only I had been able to say something, instead of running from the room like a coward, I wouldn’t be alone in the dark library, talking to you though  you can’t possibly hear me.

            I know it wasn’t the first time. Somehow I know that. Not only because everything makes so much sense now �" Rebecca really was the girl he had in his dorm that night. No, this has been going on under my nose for a long, long time. The way they looked together, I knew it had been weeks, if not months, since this began.

            It’s not fair. On top of everything, it’s just not fair, Kristen. Why do they get to be together, when I don’t have anyone in the world? Jim has done nothing to deserve a girl like Rebecca. I sacrificed everything, and where am I? I’m alone, and I’ll be alone forever.

            At the same time, I know that when I met you, I had done nothing to deserve you. Back then, when we fifteen and you smiled at me in your father’s store, when I kissed you for the first the bench in the park at dusk, I thought you were a gift from God. I know I never deserved you any more than Jim deserves Rebecca, but that only makes it hurt more.

Do you ever think about the first time? Of course you don’t. You can’t. But I do. But I remember exactly. It was two winters ago, when I had just turned eighteen and you were still seventeen. God we were so young. Remember? We had been together for ages already. It was midnight in December, after the town was invaded, but before the wall went up. That was the scariest time, when no one knew what was going to happen. Looking back, that’s probably why we did what we did that night. We needed each other more than we ever had, if only for something to hold on to.

There was a knock at my door of my flat in the middle of the night and I was sure the soldiers had come for me. My parents were out �" it was just the beginning of the resistance. I brought a knife to the door under my pajamas, did I ever tell you that? But it was you. I’ll never forget what you looked like right then, standing in the dark hall in your nightgown and shoes. I remember thinking it was a miracle that you made it all the way to the apartment without being seen. If I ever believed in God, I believed more than I ever had at that moment.

I thought something must have been really wrong, for you to have been desperate enough to come. But I’ll always remember what you said when I asked what was wrong. “I’m cold,” you said.

We went into my room and you got in my bed, and I got in with you. You were shaking, and then I started shaking because I knew it was going to happen, and because your feet were like ice on my legs. Then you started to cry a little and you asked if I was scared. I can tell you now that I lied when I said no, though I guess you figured that out for yourself. I was terrified out of my head. But I wanted to make you feel better. I wanted you to feel safe with me.

And that was the first time you said it. There with your face buried in my chest, you said it. “I love you, Herschel.” And when I told you I loved you too, I had never meant anything more in my whole life. Then I pulled the blankets all the way over our heads. And neither of us took our clothes all the way off, because it was so cold. I just sort of went under your nightgown and pulled down my pants. And I tried to think back to the books I had read so I would know what to do. You knew I was just as much of a virgin as you were, but I still wanted you to think I knew what I was doing. And then everything was just warm and scary and wet for a few minutes, and then it was over.

You bled a little, I remember that. I was really scared I had hurt you. But you said no, it was fine. I wouldn’t let you go home that night, remember. I was afraid something would happen to you if you got caught on the street. God, why couldn’t I have always been so worried for you. If I had been thinking about you that day, instead of myself, you would still be alive. Eventually, you were almost like a spirit to me, like nothing could hurt you. How much more wrong could I have been?

But that night I didn’t know that. I just couldn’t let you go back out there. I never wanted you to go anywhere without me again. Right then, I thought maybe if we could somehow stay in that bed forever, everything would be all right.

            Goddamn it, now I’m crying. This night has been bad enough without reminding myself of things that only hurt to remember. But I don’t know if I ever told you how I felt that night, so I’m telling you now.

            That’s why it’s not fair, Kristen. No one has a love like ours, and I don’t think anyone ever will. It makes me angry and sick that anyone would try to. Jim and Rebecca will never be like we were, so why do they get to be happy anyway?

            I won’t let myself give up on going home, even in the face of what’s happened. I’m doing it for you, Kristen, don’t you see? I wish I thought you would be proud of me for going back, but I know you better than that. You would be disappointed that I gave up on a chance to be happy. But I know I’ll make you proud. I’ll take back our home from the ones who took you from me.

            Tomorrow is going to be hell, Kristen. I wish you were here. Oh God, I wish you were here. I would give anything just to hold your hand through tomorrow.

            You were everything, Kristen. You are still everything. You will always be everything.

I love you,

Herschel

Reviews

[Arianna]

grr.
why.
i want to hate him for wanting to break them up.
but i cant.
because...
i just cant
you make life very difficult for me emily.. you REALLY do.