Because We Had Us

Chapter 17. We'll Be Ok

Corin

     Being Locked in a room with a pretty girl used to be my dream until it actually happened. It was romantic in no way. Being locked in a room with Jo was like being stuck in a room with my mom. Everything bad that happened was my fault. She always found a way to blame something on me. Miriam's disappearance was my fault, as well as Laz and Ruth's. She also felt the need to tell me that her period pains were my fault, because my stupidity somehow made her cramps worse.

     I had lost count of the days we had been trapped, and Jo chose to fill every second crying, screaming, or laughing hysterically about her sister's disappearance. I tried to tell her "I'm sure she's with Ruth or Laz, if she wasn't she would have turned around and came back by now," but my efforts were pointless.  She would just proceed to tell me that I didn't understand and then she would try to squeeze into the tunnel again and again. She had multiple cuts and bruises from her attempts to fit in there, but she refused to stop despite her body's cries for help.

     "Jo please stop torturing yourself and it's not helping Miriam," I begged her for the hundredth time.

     "You know what's not helping, your constant concern for me," she snapped back. "You're not my dad, heck your not my friend, so why don't you just shut up!" Her words stung and so much that I did shut up. My legs carried me as far away from her as possible, which wasn't very far considering our dilemma. I sat in silence contemplating everything, every choice that I made or that someone made for me, that brought me to this moment. This moment of hurt, fury, and somehow of empathy. Her words were as cold as ice but all I wanted to do was hold her. I wanted so badly to tell her everything would be fine, but my words only seemed to fuel her raging emotions so I didn't speak. I found it comical that though we were isolated together and yet I had never felt more alone. I was tired of feeling alone.

     I began to slowly close in the space between us. She never gave up on me despite the awful things I had done to her, so I wasn't about to give up on her.

     "Just get away from me Corin," she began to scream, walking further and further away from me. "I'm a mess, can't you see that all I do is hurt people no matter how hard I try to be what everyone needs." I continued in my steps, getting closer and closer to her.

     "Jo, don't you see that's the problem?" I whispered in my most comforting voice. "You try so hard to be everything for everyone, but really all anyone wants is you." I felt my face blush, but I didn't try to hide it. "You try so hard to take care of people and you never let people help you, and I can say this because I don't like to let people help me either." Tears streamed down her face as she fell into the wall behind her. We were now face to face. "Lets may a deal," I began, holding her face in my hands so she had to look at me. "Instead of running from each other, let's take care of each other." I felt my own heart pounding in my chest. She looked at me; her eyes were soft, but still full of fear.

     I moved in closer. I wanted nothing more than to take away her fear. Remembering our night on the glass bridge, I repeated my list of 'errands' in my head: clarity, connection, and...

     Suddenly she spoke and It was as if our minds were on the same wavelength. "What's the third one?" She asked me, with a new sense of hope in her eyes. I moved in closer, but she looked taken aback my proximity. Feeling her breath against mine, caused me to loose mine. I noticed the specks of brown in her blue eyes, and the few freckles she had around her eyes. I noticed her complexity, her immense care she had towards every living thing, and I finally understood the need for human connection.

     "I said it was a surprise didn't I?" I responded finally, inches away from her face. "But if you must know it's kiss," I whispered as I leaned into her. I slid my hands up her face and began to take off her mask.

     "Wait," she objected holding tightly to her mask. "I haven't taken off my mask since you gave it to me, and what if we somehow get sick." I wasn't sure if she was actually scared of getting sick, or if she was just scared of letting herself get close to someone.

     "It's ok," I whispered, guessing it was the latter. She too realized I could see right through her.

     "Iv'e just fallen into the pattern of shutting everyone out since my brother died," she began, trying to stifle her tears. "I can't handle loving someone so much just for them to be ripped away from me again," she cried. I held her closer. She didn't deserve to fear the thing that made her who she was. I wasn't sure how to reply, so I just gave her the hard truth.

     "I can't promise you that nothing will ever happen to me because only God knows the plan for my life, but I will promise you that I will love you until my dying breath and into eternity Jo, if you will let me."  I felt her heart jump, as a tear rolled down her face.

     "And on a more Corin usual sarcastic note, since I gave you that mask I think I have the right to take it back," I chuckled raising an eyebrow. She couldn't help but smile. She put her hand on my chest and pulled back once more, only for a second though to correct me, like the smart alec she was.

     "Kiss starts with a K so much for the three c's," she giggled.

     I smiled and then spoke softly, "would you prefer I change it to Corin's lips?" At that point we both broke into fits of laughter. It felt like it was just her and I against the universe, and our odd little family of course. Just as I was about to lean in again Jo's face went blank and her body limp.

     "Boom!" She dropped to the floor like she had been shot. I rushed onto the ground frantically calling her name as she lay motionless.

     "Jo, wake up, come on Jo," filled with agony I shook her hoping to shake some life into her, but she wasn't responding.

     "Jo we can't end it like this," my voice cracked. She lay motionless before me. Just as I thought the world couldn't get any crueler, just as I thought I had reached the limit of pain one person could endure in a lifetime, it somehow amplified and only got worse. I racked my brain for any possible solutions to wake her up, but it's hard to find a solution when you don't even know the problem. Panic attack? Heart attack? Some other kind of attack? What could it be? Suddenly I couldn't breathe myself, for it felt as if someone was sitting on my chest. "In and out," I told myself. "Just breathe."

     How could basic functions become so hard in times of turmoil? My body was completely healthy it was her's that wasn't. Was my mind so strong that it could turn my poor emotional health to poor physical health too? How do I gain control over my mind? I learned in this moment that all my running, hiding, and surviving from external forces was pointless. It was a mere ant compared to my real enemy. I had spent so long trying to escape from forces of the world when I should have been running from my myself. I could never hide from my greatest threat that was my mind. In that moment of clarity I gazed at Jo's lifeless form with wonder.

     How was it that I had just promised to love her as long as I lived, but she was the one who wasn't ok? She was in tears less than five minutes ago, afraid of me leaving her, but somehow she was the one who left me. It wasn't right, it wasn't fair, but she looked peaceful. Maybe this is what she wanted? This constant game of survival was anything but peaceful. Maybe she was the luckiest of us all? If death was our only escape from ourselves maybe it wasn't so bad? I stopped shaking her, instead I held her in my arms, stroking her hair.

     "It's ok Jo, if this is what you want." A tear escaped, rolling down my cheek. "I'll take care of them all, we'll be ok." At least that's what I thought until I too hit the ground with a splintering pain in my head.