Destiny Island

Chapter 27

Trust

While they were sitting at the foot of the mountain getting ready for the climb, Ignacio realized that he was being ridiculous. The two of them only had each other to lean on in an unfamiliar and possibly dangerous place. He might as well easy up and apologize, give some kind of explanation.

They couldn't very well spend all eternity in dead silence. Besides, the silence was making his anger worse. It was boiling up deep inside him threatening to erupt like a volcano.

"I am sorry...." He said not knowing what to say. "...about earlier. I was... wrong." He said in a barely audible voice.

Amber was tempted to pretend she didn't hear him and make him repeat it, but no matter how annoyed she was with him she didn't want to mess up their only chance to make amends.

"It's okay. I am sorry, too..., If it seemed I was prying. I just wanted to know what triggered that kind of behavior so that I could help you stop it from happening again." She said honestly.

"I guess you had all the right to ask the questions. It's just... something I am not comfortable talking about. If you haven't noticed, I have a bit of a temper." He said.

"Really?! I haven't noticed." She said.

Her answer made him crack up and broke the tension that had been between the two of them. As they smiled at each other, at the joked shared, he decided that maybe he should tell her at least a fraction of what was happening in his head. She was right, his temper could cause problems in the future, and they needed to prevent that from happening.

"I have had anger management issues for a long time now.
When I was a child, I was actually a very friendly and happy child, but things changed... things changed when my father died.
At first, I was devastated by sadness, but soon enough sadness turned into anger.

I was furious at him for leaving.
In my mind, I didn't care that he didn't choose to leave, the only thing I cared about was that he left us.
What made me even more annoyed with him was the fact that after his death I felt responsible for my family. After all, people always say that the head of the family has to be a man.

I was only fourteen, but although I wasn't a man yet, I felt like the whole responsibility of protecting and guiding the family fell upon my shoulders.
My sisters are younger than me, so I thought that I should be a good father figure for them. I thought that I should protect them from all the evils of the world. They didn't like that. Repeatedly they told me I was not their father, and that I should stop forcing them to be who they didn't want to be.

I couldn't understand how they missed the fact that I was guiding them towards the safest way, the best way for them to stay healthy and safe.
Their blatant disregard for my advice made my anger issues worse, but I tried to hide it.
It wasn't such an easy thing to do when you put a hand through the window in a fit of rage, but I tried.

My attempts weren't good enough.
My anger started spilling out.
It was poisoning us, our family.
That was when I decided to leave.
The anger was getting uncontrollable and I didn't want to hurt any one of them.
So I moved to another city under the excuse of finding a job, but I didn't succeed in running away from my problems, they followed me everywhere I went.

As time went on, I was no longer sure if I was angry at my father or myself.
Maybe there was something wrong with me.
I could feel certain darkness seeping into my heart.
It happened every time I got angry.
It got so bad that I was afraid to look in a mirror, afraid of who I might find there.

With time, I learned to partially control it. I realized that whenever I did menial work I managed to work off that anger. That in turn, led to the improvement of my social life and that was when I met Royce.

He is such a positive guy that his way of living helped me see there was a better way. You could say that we balanced each other out. I guess that's the reason I find it more difficult to control my temper now." Ignacio said.

He surprised even himself by the long speech. Maybe it was a mistake opening up so much to a stranger, but he needed her to understand that he didn't do it on purpose, that it was beyond his conscious control.

As for Amber, to say that she was shocked by the revelation would be an understatement. What she expected was some lousy excuse that she would have accepted and moved on. She didn't expect the guy to bare his soul to her. How was a person supposed to react to that kind of personal revelation?

Not knowing what else to say she just said: "Thank you for telling me. It helps me understand you better and that can be helpful in the future if we want to work well as a team." 

Ignacio just looked at her, confusion obvious on his face. 

"Did I say something wrong?" Amber wondered upon seeing that look on his face.

"We all have some issues and I think that is normal. If we are to figure this out, we need to be able to rely on each other. As you might have noticed from my lack of obvious signs of sympathy I have some problems expressing support or basically I suffer from a lack of social skills. In normal situations, I can do fine, but if someone becomes emotional or tells me something very personal I have no idea how to react.

If someone starts crying, then I become a mess.
The best I can do is pat the person's shoulder and say "There, there, everything will be okay".
As you have probably guessed that is not very helpful.
From time to time, I misread people, I guess because I lack the necessary social skills to notice the signs of deception.
That was the reason I insisted that you should tell me what happened with the dark fairy.
I wasn't sure if I could trust you or not.
Having some kind of answer sounded like a good idea." Amber said.

"How about now? Do you trust me?" Ignacio asked. 

"Honestly, I have no idea what to think, but since I don't have another choice I will trust you. Don't make me regret it." She said.

"I can promise you that I would never do anything to intentionally hurt you." He said.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound very comforting since you just admitted, moments ago, that sometimes you lose yourself in anger and might unintentionally hurt me," Amber said.

Before he had a chance to defend himself she went on: "It's okay I can't promise that I won't hurt you without intending to, so we are good. What I am worried about right now is how we are going to climb this mountain." She said.

"Well, since we don't have any gear maybe we could do it without any safety measures. We can help each other out." He said sounding unsure.
"That sounds nice, but honestly I don't have any experience climbing and I might pull you down with me." She said.

As they contemplated their next step, Amber couldn't help but wonder what they were doing and why. In the world they came from, there was always a rational reason to do something, but there they were following a hunch. They were blindly following something they couldn't see or understand. But in her mind, it felt so normal on the magical island.

"Magical island! Magic!" She thought to herself.
"We can use the magic that the fairy queen gave us. At first, we can try climbing the way you suggested, but if something happens we can use it as a safety measure. We can activate it if we absolutely have no other choice." She said.

"That's a brilliant idea. I have totally forgotten about that. It sounds much safer than what I suggested." He said.

"I guess we work as a team better than I expected," Amber said marveling at the idea of her and Ignacio actually agreeing on something.

They might have disliked each other, but they definitely complemented each other and made a perfect team for the adventure that awaited them. They made the final preparations for the long climb and set off as soon as they felt they went through all the possible scenarios of what might go wrong.