Love In A Battlefield

Chapter 24

She was jittery. She wasn't herself and that was the most obvious part about her. The look on her face as she put one foot in front of the other was deafening with its silence, she bit her bottom lip and wrung her hands in front of her body.

All I could was keep up with her slow pace and wait patiently for her to say something.

She sighed as she spoke "We broke up," She croaks out. She stops dead in her place and sits down on a bus stop bench, her fingers grabbing onto the rusted bars and turning white. Her silent sob killing me.

"What?" I sit down next to her and grab her hand. She turns away from me and stands up, she wipes the loose tears and crosses her arms.

This was the Lynn I knew, the Lynn who didn't want anyone's pity. The Lynn who didn't want an "I'm sorry" or condolences, that isn't who she is and any sort of pity like a hug or speech would only make her mad. She gave a tight smile and I tilted my head to the side, she couldn't hide away her feelings on this.

She sat back down on the bench and rested her forearms on her knees "We broke up," she said more clearly.

"How?" I manage to get out.

Lynn and Noah have been together longer than any of us can remember. We all made bets on when he would ask to marry her but these past few weeks, I can't deny, have been off. Fights between would break out in the middle of nowhere and that was the strangest part.

They never fought.

The day they met was like fireworks. We were freshman and Noah had been friends with us since third grade, Matt and I hiding his secret of being in love with Lynn quiet until he asked her a week after spring break that year. Ever since then, they've been inseparable. But ever since that day at the diner...they haven't been the same.

I look down and see that Lynn took off her emerald promise ring he gave her our junior year for Christmas. I have a sharp intake of breath at the seriousness of her face. I could tell it was killing her, she loved him more than anything and both of then hadn't gone a day without the other.

I tap my fingers against my knees as she leans against the back of the bench "We, uh, you know we've been having our problems lately. The yelling and vulgar gestures are hard to miss." She stares at the ground "At the diner, he was angry with me for agreeing because I knew the tension between the two of them...but I did it anyway and Noah was upset. I told him that we were all best friends and lately the two of us hadn't been kind to you.

"That started a whole 'nother argument, but regardless the final straw for him is when I asked Michael Greenlaw to come help my brother study. Noah didn't like the fact that Michael and I were alone together, even though we were with my thirteen year old brother. I told Noah that he was being irrational."

I switch my position "And?"

"And we yelled some more before I told him to get out of my house and if he was going to treat me like he had been than he needs to recheck himself." She eyes me past the sun "Alone." She has an intake of breath before continuing "This morning, his mother called and said that Noah didn't come home, I went searching for him but then Matt called. Matt said he saw Noah walk into a bar during the day, so I went there and found him with a bottle of whiskey and a girl in his lap.

"He eyed me and I laughed before walking out of there. Noah didn't come out and I didn't go back in. I just came straight to your house because I didn't want to go home and face my mother and happily married sister. I didn't want to face my family."

We didn't talk for a while. We just sat there in silence while letting the birds sing and the wind take off the edge of the sun beating down on us. I grab her hand tight enough to make sure that she can't pull away from me. Shockingly, she leans against my shoulder and cries.