Right Where You Left Me | Reiner Braun

Chapter 12 - Slighted

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I suppose that was when I first learned in its true essence the tenets of the Marleyan saying- you cannot fall for a soldier and get away with it. The fact that they weren’t always going to be there. And right at the peak of your bliss is the instant they’ll vanish away, following their call of duty, leaving you half a widow.

Days after Reiner’s sudden disappearance, I still had no word from him. I left his apartment that morning after I stayed the night at his place, carrying on with my own life after convincing myself that he would call or come to the bookstore the following evening.

But a week had passed since then and still, not a single word. Every day, I read the Papers to see what the latest developments were in the military or even in politics, but not one of them alluded to the possibility that Reiner was involved. The Jaw and the Cart were actively fighting in the North. Reiner mentioned to me once that the higher-ups had given him this time to rest after he returned from Paradis, but he was still called to the HQ every now and then to handle some matters, sometimes even to go to military bases and camps. The military was all over the reports as they’ve always been. But there was no news about the specific Warrior that I was looking for.

I tried calling him at the Headquarters but nobody answered. On the last day I attempted, somebody else picked up, a woman with a calm voice, seemingly so perceptive that I was frightened to give her any more detail.

“Hello, I’d like to check on Reiner Braun, please.”

“Who is this?” The young woman asked over the line.

“Um… A friend of his.”

She laughed lightly, a chuckle that was not insulting, but still alarming, like she already had me figured out. “Reiner has a friend outside of us? Humor me, miss. Are you his latest conquest?”

That was where I slammed the receiver back and never called again.

Who was that woman? Was Reiner with her? Who was she to him? Why was she there in Reiner’s room to answer the call?

The thoughts plagued me like poison overnight, threatening to make me turn against my own lover. My Reiner, with another woman? It was inconceivable. And yet she put it so blithely- his latest conquest- what could that possibly mean?

Had I been wrong? After all of that seemingly genuine concern and understanding me in depths I did not fathom was possible for a stranger to do, had I been wrong about my judgement of Reiner?

My heart was tearing at the seams. And yet I had to continue on with my life. I had to sit there at work and handle the papers, do what I could do with the remaining time that the Audit had before they laid us all off. I had to come home and take care of Mr. Pascal, see about the welfare of the bookstore; function normally as if my whole soul wasn’t being painfully altered by that lapse of Reiner’s sudden disappearance.

More than a week after Reiner’s disappearance, I was coming home from work when I found the Mrs. Dewitt on the pavement in front of the bookstore, her portly stance towering over my shrivelled up Mr. Pascal. Her arms were crossed against her bulging chest, her sneering face sanguine from impatience as she chewed on poor my old man.

Something squeezed my already slowly wilting heart, threatening to thin my resolve even further. I put one foot in front of the other and mustered up the steadiest voice I could bring up to my throat at the moment.

“May I help you, Madam Dewitt?” I asked gently, stepping next to Mr. Pascal to support his weak frame.

“You’re three months due for the rates you missed for almost a year, little miss!” She hissed behind her teeth. Her small black eyes widened the more she glared at me. “I thought you’d have last year’s debt covered up by December! It’s March! I swear to heavens, Miss Mayer, you’ll get your quaint little bookshop torn down by the end of the season!”