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"I can't tell you." Tears burst from my eyes. The pain I'm feeling seems unbearable as the past barrels forward to slaughter a future I only pretended could come true.
"No, Juliet, please don't."
He grabs my arms, and hauls me from beneath my blanket, into his waiting lap. His caress, and the murmured words meant to soothe, only make me cry harder though. And then it's too late. The memories I try so hard to keep away fill the space in my head like an unwelcome enemy.
Suddenly, wrapped in the safety of his arms, I have the insane urge to tell him the truth. To lay the pieces of my soul out for him to see. I suddenlyneedto tell him my truth. It's now or never. I swallow and spill my secrets in a rush of words that tumble from my mouth as if they've been waiting to be free.
Refusing to look at him, I haltingly begin.
"I was born in England in 1414 near Windsor…"
Will Darling
San Francisco 1941
My first thought when I see Will Darling is that I've never seen a man that looked so good in a uniform. My second thought is that I've never met a man who is such an asshole.
Having spent the last ten years stuck in a quiet little village in southern Russia in the 1800s, the intensity of the U.S. on the cusp of war is a shock to my system. This life is more bittersweet than others since in a perfect world I would have still been growing old with Landon. Although certainly a lot has changed since my time here in the 20s, it still holds enough reminders of that lifetime that I find myself having to actively pull myself out of my melancholy more times than not. I was lucky, if you could actually call anything about my curse lucky, that I had lived several new lives since my time with Landon before coming here. It had given me time for the gripping despair I had experienced from losing him to fade enough that I could get through an hour without feeling like I was about to die.
Another plus to returning to the States, I'm not as caught off guard as I usually am when I find myself thrown into a new life abruptly.
I read in the papers about what is going on in Europe, but it doesn't seem quite as real tucked away safe in California. It isn't until the 7th of December, when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, that the war suddenly becomes very real.
I'm volunteering with the Red Cross as a nurse, and they have me working near the port in San Francisco. San Francisco is bustling with war preparations, and there is a steady influx of young, dashing soldiers around, if you're into that sort of thing. I for one am not interested. I've been invited by other nurses to go with them to the dance halls, but I've always politely refused. I don't have anything inside of me to give anyone. There's no light inside me for anyone to spark. No one is going to be able to ease the emptiness that losing James and then Landon has left in me.
Today is worse than normal. If I was a normal girl, Landon and I would be celebrating our 19th wedding anniversary.
"Just come out for one hour," begs Trina, a fellow nurse who is always quick to offer me a smile.
Her question pushes me from the pity party I'm having. She asks me every time she has plans. For the first time I feel an urge to go. I need a distraction. Anything that will keep me from imagining the life I could have had.
"What time should I be ready?" I ask, and Trina drops the metal tray she is carrying with a bang, the stacks of bandages that had been neatly folded on top of the tray flying everywhere.
"You're going to come?" she asks hopefully. I nod with a reluctant smile.
"Whoohoo!" she cries, startling the patients nearby once again. She gets shushed by the nurse in charge this shift, and we both cover our mouths and step outside before dissolving into laughter. Laughing feels good. It feels strange, but good.
As we walk to the apartment building we both live in, Trina chats about the new dance hall we'll be going to tonight. She assures me that it's full to the brim with the hottest soldiers around. Of course, she doesn't realize that such a fact sounds more like a nightmare than paradise to me, but such is the way my life works with the secrets I carry.
Despite my dread for the night I actually try to get ready, curling my long black hair into big curls as is the current trend, and dabbing on some red lipstick to go with the royal blue cocktail dress that Trina begged me to borrow for the night. Both colors feel like far too much on me. It makes me look like someone who is actually living rather than just going through the motions.
"Fake it till you make it," I tell my reflection in the mirror.
A knock on the door has me nervously grabbing my shoes and heading to the door. Trina is standing outside with a few of the other nurses who work with us, bouncing excitedly.
"You look stunning," she says enthusiastically, winding her arm through mine.
"So do you," I tell her truthfully, feeling warm from her praise. I listen to the girls talk around me, thinking of England, the last time I had a large group of girls that I could tell anything. Despite the centuries of separation, a gaggle of girls could be counted on talking about the same thing in this life as they could in my previous world; boys.
Many of the nurses live together, but I choose to live alone. Listening to them laugh together, I long for the companionship that comes from having good girlfriends. I chide myself for the moment of self-pity. Relationships of any kind never do me any good.
For now, I immerse myself in the sound of their laughter, pretending I'm just like them. Just another girl out with her friends for a night about town. Snippets of their conversation wash over me. The name "Will Darling" can be heard several times, and I wonder who they are talking about.
We get to the outside of the dance hall. I can hear the big band music that's so popular in this decade playing from inside. I hesitate before following the girls into the hall. A flashback of walking into a jazz club the night I met Landon has me momentarily grimacing with pain.
"Just breathe," I tell myself, and then I follow the girls into the dance hall.
It's crowded and loud, and I immediately want to go home. I hurry to catch back up with my companions and join them in grabbing a drink at the bar. I'm just about to take a sip of my whisky sour when Trina startles me by grabbing my arm. I narrowly miss splashing liquor all over my dress.
