Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
╔═══════════════╗
joe liebgott !
╚═══════════════╝ angst
you did not expect to see joe liebgott here in a place like this. in all honesty, you should've anticipated it. why wouldn't he be there? you were right to doubt him. joe had never attended one of these events when the two of you had been together. why would he? to him, the war was a distant memory. something he wished he could forget.
you had different feelings compared to joe. these people were your family. after all, you all had gone through too much together. you wouldn't miss a reunion for the world. although, you didn't mind avoiding joe like the black plague. there were tons of questions you had for him, but you were far too concerned with staying as far away from him as you could.
luckily, bill guarnere and george luz had cornered you. with bill waving his crutch and george bouncing up and down with a toddler attached to his leg, you wouldn't have to see joe anytime soon. unluckily for you, you knew it was joe's birthday. there was no way in hell you'd leave without feeling guilty. you didn't owe joe a thing. after all, he was the one that had left you. you didn't have to talk to him and joe saw you hesitating as you approached him.
"hi?" you greeted him, voice coming out a little shaky. your greeting sounded more like a question than anything.
"y/n! hey." joe replied, a grin spreading across his handsome face. at one point in time, that smile could've brought you to your knees in an instant. the first time you saw his lips upturn . . . you could've married joe within the hour. some part of you missed that dearly.
"it's wonderful to see that you're doing okay." you stated with a double meaning behind your words that joe seemed to latch onto. his eyes fell slightly.
"well, it hasn't been easy." joe shuffled his feet as he looked to the floor nervously. "but, um . . . how are you doing?"
"better than i have been."
"i'm so -"
"sorry? please don't do that, joe." you glanced back to george and bill. the latter had now picked up whatever toddler had been glued to george. "we both know you don't mean it. you were the one that left me."
"i regret that every single day. god, you were the best thing to ever happen to me."
"don't do that."
"do what?"
"make me fall back in love with you."
joe stared at you momentarily. there was a pregnant pause. the only thing left between the two of you was a shell of a relationship and stale air.
you could remember the day joe left so vividly. he didn't have it in him to leave while you were asleep. joe say you down and said he was leaving. no explanation at all. you had thought it was a joke. the two of you swore to spend the rest of your lives with one another. you'd live in san francisco, heal from the war, and have a bunch of kids (enough for a baseball team). you spent two years wondering what just ever gone wrong. what had you done to make joe get up and leave?
little did you know that joe had been tearing himself down and hiding behind a facade of smiles just for you. you would go to sleep and joe would sneak downstairs to the couch, only coming back to bed before your alarm sounded off. the two of you struggled with your trauma from the war in different ways. unlike joe, you were always more vocal about it. he sat and listened to every word you had to say whilst shoving down his own pain. to him, your distress was far more important than his own. staying with you, too afraid of his mind, wasn't doing either of you any good. with each passing day, you felt joe slipping away until you had absolutely none of him at all.
joe had gone back to stay with his mother. you continued with your miserable life in an empty home. the ghost of joe was etched into the walls, not once taking its sight off of you. every corner you turned, you expect to see joe standing there with open arms. for over two years, you longed for one of his bear hugs. before the war, you didn't know joe. returning to a normal life wasn't at all easy and joe had been there in the beginning to soften the blow. without him, you felt utterly lost.
the two of you had been ripped apart by your own grief, dealing with it in different ways. joe had always been an affectionate person. never in a million years had you assumed he would leave. after all, the two of you spent many nights in foxholes planning your future with the tiniest details set in place. it had been carved out and placed so delicately in front of you, only to be ripped away right when you had begun to admire the sculpture of life.
without you ever admitting it, joe knew you missed him. he could see that you weren't doing okay. there wasn't much behind your eyes anymore. he saw the way you interacted with bill. your smile never reached your eyes. it was empty. only full of all the little promises you had whispered to joe, never taking the chance to get them off the tip of your tongue.
now, standing here, the two of you were complete strangers. it was as though you had never held one another tighter than ever as shells rained down over your heads. maybe you hadn't moved in together after the war. perhaps you had made it up. because standing in front of joe felt so wrong yet so right. you felt like you didn't even know him.
"y/n, i really mean it. i am so sorry. i just needed time."
"and i needed you." you stared at him, biting back tears. "happy birthday, joe. make it count."
