Junior Lieutenant

Do you remember that look? Brief, like the exhalation before a throw. Vanya, the junior lieutenant, adjusted the belt on his tunic, and you already knew: this wasn't a date. This was war, breathing gunpowder and other people's letters with a triangular stamp in your face.

You led him, not by the hand, but by a map where there were craters instead of streets, and instead of houses, there were landmarks like "destroyed school" and "southern heights." He spoke quietly, in a military manner, without any "I love you." Just: "Wait. I'll be back when ordered." You nodded, even though a shell exploded inside you. Back then, you didn't yet know what a funeral notice smelled like—your own, someone else's, one shared between three.

For weeks you lived on dry rations of radio reports. The rustle of the airwaves was like the rustle of a greatcoat. And he... he was there, where "wait" becomes a call sign, and a name is superfluous. Where senior officers lie down first, and junior lieutenants learn to block the sky with their bodies.

You didn't cry in the crush of people like you at the station. Women with empty eyes and duffel bags full of hope. You whispered, "Vanya, you just switched to a different frequency." But the jammer hit your heart: short, without interference.

Time in war isn't measured in days. In bullets. In halts. In the silence after an attack. And that final step, when the junior lieutenant turns around—no longer wearing a belt, no longer wearing a rank—just your boy, to say what he didn't have time to say:

— I'll come back. Even if I'm no longer here.