To Miles 56

Matt jokes with me and I even eat slower, just watching him interract. I didn't even realize until Matt pointed out to me that my mother had made milkshakes specifically for me, that there even was one in front of me and I had been drinking it. The fellow pilot just laughed, patting my back, never tearing his eyes of me. I wanted to ask him when did he start loving me. When was it that he fell in love in love with me. When. When had it been so? I don't have the guts to ask him and it's as if all the memories have gone away from me, allowing me to be stuck with my love alone.

I can't help but think of kissing him harshly, forgiving him for absolutely everything if he touches me back. I can't help it. I keep looking at him and I wonder what is even occurring to everyone else, because I am clearly just observing it. Then as children we finish our desserts as early as possible and we head upstairs to talk and no one bats an eyelash, because his parents have always been friends with mine and now our mom's will gossip when will we bring some wives home and how noble we are. Matt's dad will most likely discuss the poker match with my own and that's how all will be left.

So we nearly run upstairs and once I lock the door I see him sitting on my bed. I don't know what else to do besides kiss him. Pray that somehow God had allowed me to be on the same shore leave as he did. Maybe war makes us religious, because it's to disappointing to think that there is nothing beyond death besides the tears of the beloved on the ground as we get buried. He keeps smiling at me and I can't help but just stare at the pilot. Maybe there's too much regret in both of our eyes, maybe there's absolutely everything in our eyes. Why is everything so damn predictable with us?

Will you discard me again?

I sit besides him and we do kiss. I can smell soap on him and I can feel his clean shave under my fingers as I pull him closer, as we just hold the kiss, somehow scared of passion and neither of us wants to speak. We pull back and it's still as if only our lips exist.

I couldn't tell him how lonely I had been.

I couldn't tell him anything at all and I feel like I've been on shore all this time, waiting for him, not knowing what else would go on and somehow I managed to cheat and I could feel the same on his lips, but somehow secrets just weep silently rather than confessing who they are.

I know that we can't really just have sex in my old bedroom with the toy planes and books now neatly stored on the shelves rather that discarded in random places. After kissing we both just lay down on my bed, looking at the ceiling and his hand makes its way to mine as Matt puts both hands on his chest. I glance at him but he still looks too scared to look at me.

I can't ask him why, if he had kissed me, did he stop writing the letters? What was it that had stopped him? Did he know, did he oh know that I had been unfaithful? Did he know that I knew?

Surely he had someone else to mess around with and to be in love with. After all I was just the brief experiment or maybe he had gone back to the girl in the bar, maybe he even got her pregnant? Maybe that's why he's so silent?

I can hear laughter from downstairs and that causes me to jerk and even sit up, feeling completely foreign to noise and that's when Matt looks at me with lost eyes. I'm just as lost in some love as he is. I don't even know where to start speaking. I don't even know what to even talk about. I feel anxious all of a sudden, feeling myself shake under all the cool and develop another craving for his lips.

I feel as if I am the God of small talk, as I just hold his hand tighter and decide to speak.

“How have you been, Matt?” I ask him and Matt seems lost himself by the sudden action, but smiles at me, sitting up. I can't ask him who has he loved, whether it was a woman, a mermaid or a fellow man who I might've known.

“I've been okay. You?” He asks me, as I keep looking into his eyes, both of us slowly leaning in, feeling that the brief letters were so not enough. I had stopped writing them as well, as soon as he stopped. I thought of Lana briefly, how she had paired both me and Matt. What would she think now? How would she think carefully of the whole ordeal?

“I've been fine.” Jamie flashes in my mind. I don't even know who I am cheating on. I don't even know-

I start thinking of the captain, desperately missing him, as my heart aches, so I feel so conflicted and juggling two men who I dearly love. Would I feel guilty for sleeping with Matt again? What would I actually feel? What and who would destroy me by the end?

I think of Lana again and what does she think about the whole love web.

I have to many things to say and I'm sure they all gallop through my eyes once Matt looks into them again with his own light ones.

Maybe I'm too greedy to hold onto so many men?

When it comes to religion and war, so many people stop being religious as they face war, because how come God would allow all of this in his right mind? My thoughts shift and I want to speak to Matt of religion, but I feel like maybe Miles would've been the best conversationalist in this subject, but instead I try not to think of him, already feeling too many men on my cock.

I feel intoxicated, I want to rest in his arms and forget about the rest, allow myself to love him and him only for a brief while even if the hug lasts not long. I push him back onto the bed, throwing my arms around him and pulling him closer, as I feel him stroke my hair. I even feel like crying, wondering how will the war unpeel further and what awaits us. I can't help but think of another man as I am in Matt's arms.

I feel so betrayed, as if I am going back to a lost love. I can't even dare myself to ask him where did he go in case he vanishes again and I know how easy I am to discard. I just feel him stroke my hair and I start thinking about how much I need a haircut, because my fringe has gotten long and I think of Jamie messing with it and how after too much sweat it just dissolves into a mess he would mock me for.

I feel eager for confessing and feeling love all over again, as if all will somehow erase missing Jamie for the time being and it's as if I could forget I would, because the pain is sometimes too much to bear, especially on his shore leave. I feel so ironic and such a whore, laying in one man's arms to think of another and I'm even scared to raise and look at Matt, because nothing reaches my mind besides the fact that I could touch him and that would fill up all our conversation and loosen it up to a ridiculous extent.

Would I say that I'm taken?

And am I really taken?

We didn't really discuss monogamy much, maybe with cigarettes and Jamie would speak of Alison darkly when they were still married, when his hand had been heavier. Eventually he thought of discarding the ring, somewhere to remind himself that he was always in another man's arms as well, but instead he just sold it and bought a cigarette case, but eventually that reminded him of his marriage, so he sold that as well.

I wondered how would his children react knowing that he would live with another man, if we were to live together.

I wondered so many things, like poor Miles who waited all the years for Jamie to divorce and he never did.

I couldn't say something like I don't love you, Matt, because he still intertwined my thoughts and sometimes I would just look at Jamie, who would tell me that I should let things take their course somehow and that it would somehow be it. Sometimes I wish that all my thoughts would be about Jamie, but I know that a lot of his thoughts, when drunk go back wandering to Alison sometimes, how her predictions some came true and some didn't and that was surely one of the things she thought when they both stood in the house, wondering who would leave, as if both had packed, never to see a house which reminded of a marriage which barely existed.

Sometimes he would ask if divorce had been the right thing to do at all. I wouldn't convince him otherwise, I would just sit and listen, sometimes forgetting the fact that I had to speak, just watching him under the dull light with wine shared among each other like in the times which sometimes I reminiscence, back when I was just falling in love with him and unpeeling him entirely, discovering him layer after layer, undressing.

Sometimes I missed it, but the longer time went the more I would just want to become a love letter, a really long one and an explanation perhaps to God himself with what had happened. But the problem is that life is long and you can never just stop it and let it go, you can never end it at all. If I were to write a love letter, I would to apologize to Miles, because no matter how sweet you fall in love, something happens and someone else

and so I lay.

What do you say to a lover of a single time?

Matt just pulls me closer and I feel too nervous to look at him.

“Lana said you were with someone.” My skin goes cold and I'm sure that Matt can feel it, but instead I just decide that it's much better to hide in a hug more than anything.

“What else did she say?” I ask quietly, as if my parents would overhear over the sounds of poker and whatnot. I wondered for a brief while, what would they think of me sinning and sleeping with not just one but plenty of men.

“Well... to be fair, she said you were with the Captain.” Matt says, trying to hold back a smile, which doesn't seem malicious or ill intended at all.

I sit up.

“She said he's a lovely chap.” Matt says as if to reassure me that somehow I had gotten his blessing, Lana's and everyone else's.

“Who else did she tell?” I ask, hoping that word hadn't gotten out far on the carrier which Matt is currently on.

“We've got some friends, so we gossip.” Matt pauses and sits up himself. “Well, there ain't much to talk about, of course. So, everyone just started even making up stories how romantic it was.”

I just stare at him, nearly blankly and wondering what to even reply, a few flashes going through my mind and then Jamie telling me about all his ring exchanges or how he would drink wine silently, as if choosing a topic to immerse in alcoholic behaviour. But when I look at Matt, there is little to no jealousy, just curioisity and he feels like a friend again all of a sudden, listening to me over milkshakes.

“So, Al, how romantic is it to take it up the ass from the captain?” He smirks lightly, but in a friendly way, as we both sit up entirely and I feel weird because I've never really discussed Jamie with anyone besides Miles, who clearly wouldn't want me messing around anywhere close near the Captain. I just blink at him, confused and worried as if every word I say will spill onwards and I will have nothing to deal with besides a discharge and even Jamie leaving me for that.

“Good, I guess.” I say without thinking, pulling my knees to myself. Matt senses my discomfort and thinks a while, before starting to stretch out his hand to pull me closer, but decides against it.

“It's... not like we gossip that much, Al. It's just this friend of mine apparently knows the Captain and they had hooked up before and remained friends.” He shrugged like it was no big deal and I wonder about it. Matt goes on. “There's even a photo of both of them right after they had hooked up which, you see, Nick keeps for an ungodly reason where they're both arms around and grinning, beautiful post-coital grin and all.”

Matt starts laughing, recalling the photo and I just sulk. I wonder about the man, how he holds the picture dear somehow. I get jealous, wondering because I had always thought the closest friend which Jamie had was always Karen who he slept with and kept in touch. I make a jealous mental note to ask him about such, even knowing that it's probably no big deal. I even wonder if I could sneak that into a letter which would be opened by probably the same queer, who makes sure to find out any slang. I could just ask him if he knew a Nick, because Matt had mentioned him and that would somehow calm me down to wait a whole shore leave. I realize that I didn't even start drafting a letter.

“Oh, Al, Jesus, I wouldn't have told you if I know.”

“Fucking tell me everything then.”

Matt rolls his eyes at jealous ol' me.

“That's all that happened, I swear. He just fucked Nick, they both did it once, even though they enjoyed it, but decided to stay friends. Nick was thrilled to know that Jamie was with a better guy now, since we all know that you're great and Lana confirmed that. They hadn't seen each other in a while, either.” Matt shrugged. “Lana said you're both great, well, what she had heard from Alison, well, before you know.”

I don't even know what to think of Matt's gossipy nature all of a sudden, since I happen to be the target of it all. Instead I just listen, as if I were staring at a clock's arrow move.

“So I've heard of him. He's known around, that he's a great Captain and that he's been hell to his crew and between just us friends, that both of you are fucking and are fucking great.” He pauses. “I'm happy for you Al.”

And I wonder if that kiss was somehow something we both wanted to get rid of, one last kiss and I wonder what to say, that somehow we're not just together, that there are plenty of other men I sleep with, but then he knows that. Maybe that's all I know. I rub my eyes. I just don't know what to say.

-

I've been writing this chapter ever since my previous laptop broke down, but I was rather depressed so I would write a sentence here and there and eventually it took this much to actually get it back up and running.

To get me in the mood for Matt I recalled an old crush of mine who told me that enjoyed the scenes with Matt a lot, so somewhere in the back of my head I associated Matt a bit with them and the whole where do I go from here is with a current person, no, not Callie, I'm more than confident where I'm going there. That's why I felt so lost and recently I've been finding it hard to talk to people even if it's not seen, so maybe I exagerated that fear in this chapter. 

I binged 1.3 k today, just sitting and Callie who nudged me to pick it up again. I miss it heavily and I constantly have a craving of reading it actually, so I just choose a random spot and read, mostly moments before Al and Jamie get together, actually, I'm a sucker for the pre-everything. 

I also stick albums or several songs from AM albums rather to Matt and Jamie. Jamie's Humbug while Matt is Suck It and See, which may be a bit cliche, but they help me write a lot. 

One of my favourite scenes which was written before is Jamie finding out that Alex likes milkshakes. So whenever I mention milkshakes I think of that or maybe just reading it now, made me think of that again.

I am terribly proud of To Miles so I always wonder what do I want to do with it, really. I don't know, I just want to keep going and going. 

Religion is a big background theme of To Miles and I myself kind of slowly became religious, so that sort of transferred onto Alex's thinking into more pondering about God and existence, even if his stance is unclear and I had given him very similiar experiences to me, so that we would be on a similar page, since Alex would be probably the most relatable to me character, because I've written so much that it's hard not to be and at the same time we are nothing alike. It's fun.

The God of small talk, is actually because when I hooked up I was the one doing all the small talk,s o that crossed my mind, that in such a bizarre occurrence I managed to small talk rather well and I was terribly pleased of asocial me. 

Alex is far more polyamorous than I am, but I still give him my fears. 

Jamie selling the cigarette case and the wedding ring, was something I wrote and I knew instantly that Callie would love it and it seemed to me like such a specific scene which would happen, so I just wrote it.

I think ahead a lot, I know what everything holds and that's why I drop hints there and here why would Alex be writing this journal and so on. There's a paragraph here which sort of explains it, I guess. But there'll be more. 

And... we've got Nick Grimshaw (got your hopes up, eh, don't worry plenty of Nicks to go?)! Finally, because it's a character I've been itching as fuck to introduce and entangle in this whole mess xD and I'll keep my mouth shut. 

Ah, yes, gossipy Matt, Callie loved it.

I really really missed this story and I'd dare that I think of it nearly daily, because I love it so and plan something about it.

Thank you

<3

Jamie

To Miles 57