Pain That Binds Us.

The Island

The rain falls heavily on the wet ground and I scold myself again for forgetting my umbrella. Julia offers me a little bit of protection from her own but only my hair gets its lee. A while later it stops raining but the wintry of the weather leaves my whole body trembling. Julia stands still beside me, impervious of the chilly wind.

My attention moves to the headstone in front of us. "Jack Limbre, a husband, father, son, and friend" is engraved on the stone. How the mighty has fallen.

"We should go...it's getting cold Julia." The shaking in my voice is evident and I pray that it convinces her to leave the coldness. But I know she wont. At least not until I am blue in the face. She's always had a flair of making me uncomfortable anyhow she could.

"I had never imagined myself a widow at thirty-four years old." She replies back in a tone devoid of emotion.

Julia had been in love with Jack the moment she saw him back when we were sixteen. Jack had been utterly in love with Julia the moment he saw her. I had been devastatingly in love with Jack the moment I could comprehend what love was.

We didn't know it back then that our friendship would morph into a monstrous and destructive evil that would claim our souls and engulf everything we will come to love in order to feed it. Maybe if we knew what would ensue in the incoming years, we would have made better choices and severed any possibilities of ever coming in contact again. But love and obsession are like a drug too hard to get off and the three of us, damaged in our own ways danced together in our elixir induced state. Jacks death came with no surprise. Of course when you take a drug too long, it is bound to kill you at some point and when it doesn't, one of your junkie friends is bound to accidentally do it when a fight occurs.

Jack and I met when we had just been pushed out of our mothers wombs. Two pregnant teens had found themselves in the same ward and instantly became best friends. Both had no one with them to help soothe the unwavering birth pains or hold their hands when it was time to push. Their high school lovers had rejected them the moment they heard of their pregnancies and their parents had followed suit. Rose and Linda left that hospital together holding hands, pledging to never leave each others side and they had kept that promise until they died.

They had moved to a small religious island called Gods Chapel, which was far away from the city and everyone who knew them. The island had tentatively accepted them but ultimately welcomed them with open arms when they deduced no harm from them. But of course, what could two teens with two new-borns do to them.

The island had still held on to its strict archaic traditions and Christianity directed the order of each day. The people grew, hunted and fished for their sustenance. They had stringently controlled what came in and out of the island, afraid of the evil outside of them. There were a few businesses that the priest had carefully chosen as he was appointed leader of the Island. There was only one kinder-garden school, a building that encapsulated both the middle school and a high school. The island had its pride and joy and it was the church. Volunteers would make sure that the grass surrounding the church was always trimmed and the inside of the church was speck and clean.

My mother, Rose had been offered a job as a kinder garden teacher and Jack's mother, Linda worked at a printing shop. For as long as I can remember, it has always been the four of us, our houses just a walking distance from each other. Jack and I had been tied at the hip from the moment we were born. The white patch on the front of my ruby-red hair had made me a target for kinder garden bullies. My mother as the teacher had done all she could to make it stop but it had never been enough. The times when she was not around, Jack became my protector. If I got a shove, he would push the bully back and if I got a harsh tug on my hair, he would pull the assailants hair too.

"I will protect you Angel." He would merrily say after giving my bully a taste of their own medicine.

By the time we got to middle school, the bullying had stopped and my life was incredible. I loved the island and most importantly I adored the time I spent with Jack. We would spend days swimming in the ocean, running together anywhere our legs could take us and when we got too exhausted, we would lie on my bed or his bed depending on whose house we were in and we would read my mother's books.

Every Sunday, the four of us would go to mass and since Jack was the altar boy, church became my favoured place. I would fascinatedly watch his every moment, beyond proud that he was doing such a good job. After mass, he would stay behind with Pastor Wilson to help him clean-up and each time I would be disappointed he could not come with us since it always looked like he did not enjoy cleaning up.

When we got to high school, our relationship remained the same, save for the intense adoration I had for him that grew along with us. I had fallen deeply in love with him. The island and the testosterone had transformed into a dreamy giant with broad shoulders that girls went crazy for at the island. His famous blonde hair was cut into a fringe that covered his emerald coloured eyes. His nervous flick of the fringe often gave us a glimpse of the greenness. The straightness of his nose curved beautifully into a tip; his pouty lips were stained pink and only a few times revealed the off-white of his linear teeth when he smiled.

Jack was also very brilliant. He said once that if he didn't love the island so much, he would leave for university to study law. I did not doubt it for once that he would become one of the greatest lawyers and the thought of me being beside him the entire time put a smile to my face. But of course, life was as cruel as the universe that created it. Jack would become a prominent lawyer, known internationally for winning complex cases. But I would never be beside him when all this materialised, at least not publicly. However, Julia would.