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Their goal is not to be famous at all, but to find themselves.
I wanted to continue loving you, Enzo, even if it wasn’t good for me. Because I can still remember the sunshine, the warmth as my cheeks ached with happiness. You are the type of person who never flows smoothly. Any person who falls in love with you, they do it in a rush. In a hurry, sometimes moments with you don’t last long, but you want them all to matter.
I can understand how magnetic we feel around each other. It reminds me of what philosophers say about the same souls coming back to your life after another life.
We haven’t broken the pattern because we feel this unjustified loyalty to loyalty, as it slowly kills and corrupts us. We continue to pledge our allegiance to those who harm us and weaken our spirits.
Pride gets in the way of a man’s ability to love.
The sadness slowly eats away at my heart; the teeth aren’t sharp. They tickle. And eventually, I give in, letting myself be served up to satisfy itself.
Chapter 13
Kenzo
20.701283, -156.173325 Haleakala National Park, Hawaii
AfterAschoolinMississippi, Connors and I get stationed in Oahu. We are both commissioned as Ensigns. It’s nice we can stick together. I am sure my dad or uncle pulled some strings to make it happen. I hope Connors would keep me in line and motivate me to live the military life.
It lasts three and a half months, nearly fifteen weeks of more training and lessons.
Before being sent to the fleet, the ten-day leave is spent fishing with my brother, dad, uncle, and a few cousins in Maine.
When we get to Hawaii, I busy myself with my new life. One where Phoebe isn’t curled around me when I wake in the morning. Her scent isn’t on the pillows; I can’t hear her laughter in the other room; she isn’t here.
I send her postcards every month. Sometimes, she sends one back, but other times, she doesn’t give me what I really want. To see her, to hold her, touch her face. But any time I offer to bring her over to the island, she goes silent.
There are excuses I come up with about why she can’t come to visit. Phoebe is off traveling to a destination many will fawn over. She has a business to run and is too busy right now. But even after a year, even two, I feel she just doesn’t want to see me.
“Who is it?”
I could tell then it was you. It’s easy; you’re just a name they don’t know. It would be simple to say it out loud. But then they would ask who you are, why you are texting me in the middle of the night. And I don’t like to lie, so I would tell them you’re lonely. We both are for different reasons. I imagine yours is a physical emptiness while mine is inside my chest.
Even if I got a message from you, I would tell them you’re nobody, but my lips would tremble as I said it.
I’m walking around a town I’ve never seen before with buddies I’ve never met until last month. Sometimes at night, Phoebe, I stare up at the ceiling of our barracks and think about that. I think about how obedience got me here.
Obeying made me do this. And it is the first time since I left your side that I consider I might have made a mistake. The little thought makes me stop on the sidewalk. Phoebe, the other guys, keep laughing and walking, but I can’t move.
I can’t move on.
It’s a hard reality to face, yet I keep trying to see if I can change the answer. From here, the palm trees sing a song like other islands don’t. Their popular demand makes them movie stars. The lava rock is sharp enough to cut, but I press my foot down hard enough to sting. Making sure I can still feel something other than losing her.
There is a lot more downtime than I initially expected. We were crammed with education, physical fitness, and everything to make us top-notch sailors during boot camp. But here, on the island of Oahu, I watch birds fly as I scrub down the deck. I listen to the local festivals as I run errands for my superiors.
Is this what I left her for?
Putting out minimal fires when I could be watching lava bubble at the top of a volcano. I am replaceable; it is the first thing I learn when in the Navy. The more I stay inside the ship, the more I feel I might lose my sanity.
Outside, the air welcomes me; it wraps me in the same feeling I got dancing with Phoebe in Cyprus. I miss that place, I miss the sentiment, I miss her most of all.
We have been out to sea for a few weeks now. The loud noises are something my ears have to get used to. There is no constant quiet, yet when I am on deck and watch the waves in the distance, I can attach myself to a sense of peace. A part of me knows what the world feels like, what I feel like in the world, and I try to remember what it means.
There isn’t enough space in the gym to work out, so I usually wait until there are fewer people to compete with. The cafeteria reminds me of elementary school with our plastic trays and seating tables.
Most of the time, the guys and me will play card games or other board games. You get really comfortable with the people around you when you are forced to live in such tight quarters with them for months at a time. We go swimming off the side of the boat when we have the time.
But it is nice going back to port, we get to stay in one place for a while, and I didn’t know how grateful I felt for those days when we were on shore.
