Day15

Thursday 20th November
Drizzle

Ok, Diary, I've pulled myself together a bit, so here goes. What happened yesterday.

I went to see Rosebud as planned with some gruel. I knocked, but there was no reply so I went in, and to my great shock I saw-

Let's approach it in another way. Rosebud wasn't really ill. The captain wasn't really ill. They were really there together on the bed. What were they doing, Diary? Let's just say it was engrossing them enough that they didn't notice my entry until they heard my scream. Why am I upset, I can hear you asking? What should I care if they want to spend time together? Well, Diary, it's mainly the secrecy. How could my best friend keep something like that from me? How could he lie to me?

No, you're right, that's not all. My thoughts keep going back to our time in college many years ago. We had just finished our third year. I was besotted with Rosebud. He was the prettiest undergraduate in the university, with his sparkling eyes and the mouth that earned him his soubriquet. Everyone wanted him to sit on their lap, but it was I who became his best friend. I used to buy him ribbons when I passed the milliner's on my way to classes. Then one day I got too greedy and came close to spoiling it all. I asked him to live with me after we graduated- in a purely platonic relationship, of course, I've never been one for all that hanky-panky. As I waited breathlessly for his answer I couldn't look at his face. He took my hand and I looked up into his eyes.

"I'm sorry," he told me, and there was real sadness in his face, "I can't do that. I just don't feel that way about men."

I just don't feel that way about men. His words, Diary. And I believed him. But after what I saw yesterday, I know that it was just me he didn't want. And that cuts, Diary. It cuts right into me.