Foolishly Falling for You

18

Lance

Michael stands in front of me red faced, his neck and arms covered in mosquitoes. His hands rest on his hips his foot tapping comically on the wet mud.

"I've been waiting—we've been waiting to you! How are we meant to charge to our inevitable dooms without our Admiral?"

I raise my brow. I didn't feel my doom was inevitable until this very moment when he said it but I suppose if the shoe fits.

"I was at home." I shrug. "Tending to my—"

"And theses infernal insects! I'm not sure what sort of curse they carry but I am certain I am not afflicted!"

I point back to my horse. "Yes well, my apologies for the said state of my men but as I—"

"Where on earth have you been!"

I stare at him blankly. "Ah...home?"

Michael throws his hands up in utter frustration, a common sentiment it seems between people who meet me. I wonder what is so frustrating.

"Okay, you tend to your broken marriage —"

"I'd say fractured," I interject.

"You tend to you fractured marriage," he amends pointedly,  gesturing wildly before scratching his neck. "And I'll fight the war. All by lonesome. Against the Spanish, the English, the French!"

"Oh my!" I exclaim. "I'm here now aren't I? You mustn't show such cowardice, Michael. It makes you pale."

I brush past him. He sputters in rage but I close my eyes indignantly.

"So I am to lead you men," I proclaim, looking out at the band of  soldier.

"Verily," one of them speaks up. "So they tell us."

I smirk and shrug. "Well, if they told you what choice do we have? Let's break camp. The battlefield awaits and it is thirsty for the blood of Englishmen."

I am thinking of what to say in my first letter to my Anita. Should I first ask if she's begun her foray into embezzlement?

No...I put pen to paper and write what comes to mind, and it takes me until the next camp stop to finally finish. I look down at my work and shake my head. I can imagine her gentle expression turning sour at the mention of me. I wonder if I may ever repair our nuptials or if we will part.

My first order of business, I should guess, is getting myself home. The front is lively, so we've heard and the initial valor has begun to wear off, as it always does.

"What says your lady friend," Micheal asks.

I frown. "Lady friend? Do you perhaps mean my wife of 10 years?"

He smirks and shrugs. "Well, you never seemed that close, thus the term lady friend."

If there is a god, I suspect he created Michael specifically to vex me at the worst possible time.

He has known me nearly as long as Anita has. We met in military school, and he has been a thorn in my side ever since.

"Michael?"

"Yes, Admiral?" Micheal smirks lazily.

"Shut the hell up,"

"So you are beginning to fall for your wife," Michael says, not shutting the hell up. "What a joyous thing that might be, if she didn't utterly despise you."

Michael has what some people may call: a happy marriage. It's quite disgusting. He speaks of his wife and child all the time, with this starry-eyed fondness. That is what she wanted from me, isn't it?

That look.

I look over at Michael, his blonde hair in the wind, as he ride toward the east, toward our doom.

"You don't ever yearn for anything else?" I ask gently.

He glances at me. "Meaning?"

"I mean...you're in the pub every weekend with me, are you really so happy?"

Michael grins, his eyes closing.

"I drink on the weekend because I like beer and my wife doesn't like it in the house. Her father used to drink heavily. Besides...when else would I meet you?"

So...his going to the pub was not some silent protest in buried unhappiness?

"What do you talk about?" I ask. "With your wife and child?"

Michael shrugs. "With my wife? Everything. How I'm feeling, how she's feeling, the weather, gossip from tea parties, things our child does. Just anything and everything."

Don't most people just...live with their wife? The kind of relationship I have is more common than the one he has. Still, I don't think his wife is better than mine. My wife is kind but brutal. She is full of tenacity, and drive. She's powerful, like a mountain, and just as majestic. But she is soft, and easily hurt, even an odd glance seems to be a dagger.

Michael's wife was...nice enough. A quiet woman, who seemed to dislike me.

"Your wife hates me," I inform him.

Michel nods. "Of course she does. After all, everyone knows how you treat that poor woman. My wife considers you a cur, and frankly, my friend I tend to agree."

I roll my eyes. Turncoat. Traitor. Ever since he got married he sides with her every time.

I sigh softly. "And she dislikes me for that? They're not even friends."

"Ladies code," Michael recites confidently. "When one lady is slighted, they are all offended. Even if they don't quite like one another."

I frown at him in question. He shrugged.

"I don't quite understand it either. But I admire it." Michael says softly.

Michael is the sort of man my wife wants I bet. He loves his wife so much, it radiates from him, it's a little annoying. He showers his wife with flowers and gifts, and letters, speaks to her all the time, and speaks of her all the time.

I could be...like that? Couldn't I?

I shiver at the thought. I must make the sun rise in the West. Which apparently means being as lovesick as my best friend.

"She says she doesn't know how a cur like you and a handsome, good man like me can be best friends."

"We are not best friends!" I scoff.

Micheal tuts and shakes his head. "This kind of repression is why your wife hates you," He trots further away from me with a soft yah. He's even nice to his horse.

"She doesn't hate me!" I shout at his back. "She just... strongly dislikes me and hopes I perish!"

I sigh, looking down at my horse. "At least you like me don't you girl?"

My horse knickers and looks away. Mh.

• • •
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