And it’s strange, because her instinct is to ask him if he’s all right, to tell him that she’s sorry. But she’s not sorry. She wants the fighting and the fear to stop. She wants him gone and for Bruges to have its streets back, to sit outside in the sun and paint along the canal and speak their own language and sing their own songs. She wants the trees to grow again and the leaves to stay on branches and things to not be so broken, for people to not fear losing their children, for boys to not be forced to run toward death. She wants all of this. She wants the war over and the Germans to leave.
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