This is the thirty-eighth of 87 letters exchanged during World War II between Nicholas Salvatore and Elizabeth Galloway. For more see Nicholas and Elizabeth.

Nils Kreuger painting - In the rain, Paris

July 23, 1944
I wish I was anywhere (but I’m here instead)

Dear Nicholas,

When you hate where you are the sound of the constant rain is like torture. All I want to do is hole up in my room and never come out. I sit back and listen to music – old songs. It makes me feel a little alone, a lot alone. I wonder is there anyone else out there like me who knows these old songs. I thought you might. Right now I feel uncomfortable in my own skin. I wish I could crawl out of it, shed it like an old shell. Are we truly living, Nicholas? Is this life or some horrible dream?

I’ve been working a lot lately waitressing – too much. Yes, a wonderful waitress am I. OH I hate it. I constantly feel embarrassed. Nick, one of the boys at a table asked me out and I got so embarrassed that I turned red in the face and began to tear up. I felt uncomfortable and inadequate. I just can’t understand how I can let people make me feel that way.

Oh well, enough –

My birthday itself was pretty good, my mother even baked a cake and acted like her old self. It’s strange just the two of us. We’re both so different without my father around. It’s nice. Then I dreamed of Bern and woke up sobbing. Everything was just as it was before. The only difference was that I was a year older. There’s not much left that I care about and I don’t want to lose any of the few things that I do care about. I don’t want to lose you.

I’m sorry this letter is so sad. I’m just all alone right now in a dark pit and can’t seem to get out of it. Maybe you can throw me a rope.

-Elizabeth

Next letter – August 5, 1944