______________________________________________________ STRANDED
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I was overjoyed as I jumped across the bridge crossing from the land to the sea. The blue, cheap, plastic backpack I was wearing bounced on my back to and fro. The stuff in my bag consisted of my diary, a camera that was sealed in my lunch bag with a bag of cookies and some banana bread, four bottles of water, and a semi-large steel canister with cats painted on the outside that held my pens, pencils, and band-aids (because I was prone to paper cuts and what have you). My mother scolded me, telling me to slow down, and that she didn't have the energy of a child. I slowed to a skip and danced in circles. To think, I was going to be on the ship that would take me home. After a too long vacation in Australia, we were taking the cruise ship back home. I carried my stuffed Koala, Boingo, who almost I never put down, in my arms. I looked back at mother, slowing my pace more so that she could catch up.
"EVAN RENÉ! Why must thou be such a bothersome child at times when your dear old mother needs rest."
"Because, I am thy child mother, why wouldst thou think other reasoning?"
"Oh don't speak in riddle to me child. You make me more fervent as the days continue on." I laughed. Mother and I were one in the same. One of our favorite things to do was insult people with an ancient way of speak. Like in Romeo and Juliet, or the Scarlet Letter; two of my very favorite stories to begin with. My mother was as interested in them as I, and we often engaged in conversation in their times speak. I cannot even count how many times she insulted dad and he had no idea.
"Well, come along then, we must board the ship in hand." Mother reached for my hand as we walked from the long bridge and onto the deck of the large ship.
Wow I'm bored already, and I've only been on this ship twenty minutes. We've barely even set sail. I thought quietly to myself. Maybe I'll write a poem. I tapped my pencil, unable to think of anything to write about other than Jason.
I love you with all my heart.
I miss you with all my soul.
I wish I could tell you all the things
I meant to say, but just never could.
"Shit, that doesn't sound right." I scribbled over the lines written and moved on. Sometimes I just wasn't in the mood for writing. Maybe I'll go have a look around the boat, and can meet some new people. For the first time since I received him, I put Boingo away. For some reason, I felt the need to stick him into my backpack, so I did. I felt almost empty without him, but the nagging feeling inside me told me that I needed to tear myself away from him. Carrying him around 24/7 wasn't helping my situation. See, Boingo was a very important gift from someone I loved very much, and in trying to cling to the love, I clung to Boingo. You're getting way too attatched that doll. Well, you're already way too attatched. It will be okay to leave him in the room just this once. He'll be safe in your backpack. I quickly went out of my room, knocking on mother's to tell her of my whereabouts.
"Come in Evan."
"Mom, I'm going to have a look around the boat. Ya know, the usual, seeing if I can pick up some hot guys so we can have wild monkey sex while drinking alcohol and doing drugs in the room next to yours, okay? I'll be back soon."
"All right kiddo, but be back before dinner," she smiled. Mom and I have been pretty close since she and dad divorced last year, then my long time boyfriend, Jason, died. He'd been a major part of my teenage life and I felt torn to pieces when he left me. Why he'd chosen the time to leave when I seemed to need him most, will forever be in question to me. I was so depressed and suicide had crossed my times so many times, so I knew this vacation would be good. Mom and I both had tragedies we needed to escape. She treated us to this vacation while I was just out of high school. Australia was so beautiful and my Aunt had a cottage in the hills here that she said mother and I could stay in. It seemed like we'd been here for a year at least, and I wouldn't doubt it. As for the divorce, I can't say I hated that too much, because thats when I started reading Puritan forms of writing, and Shakespearian type novels. Shocked from the news, I went through our library at home, and found them under mounds and mounds of books. And after Jason's death, I couldn't even bring myself to come out of our in-home library; I lived there. My house was inherited from my great grandmother, Claire, who had taken a fond liking to mother, because she would read to her at the hospitals before she passed on. Claire was mom's mom's mom and the house is where my mom grew up, and her mom grew up and so on. It'd been in the family for seven generations. Of course, if my parents pass before I do, being the only child, I will inherit it myself. At first glance it's almost creepy, especially on stormy nights, but once you're use to it, it's grand. All this thinking about my house is making me even more homesick. I sighed. Despite the efforts of my mother, this us-two-alone-in-a-huge-ass-house thing wasn't really working. Sure dad was entitled to half of it, but he decided to give it all to my mother, saying she could use a lesson on how to "clean a fucking house." Quote, unquote. But isn't that the maid's job? I walked on upper deck amongst the "upper" people as they chattered about things such as stock markets, their children in boarding or military schools, and just about as much crap conversation as you have ever heard in your life. I'd nod politely in their direction, but never once did I open my mouth. I did not dare start a conversation with those moneybags. I was searching for someone, anyone at all, who actually looked interesting. I decided it would be better for my health to jump down a level. I ran down the set of provided stairs to the second level deck. I walked around the whole second deck of the boat not seeing one interesting or insightful looking person. By now, I'd even settle for a guy. I just wanted SOMEONE my age to talk to. Upon entering the third deck, an endearing gleam of short, sunshine colored hair caught my attention. I trod down the steps and over to the person who seemed my age. From the back, this guy looked the spitting image of Jason. The blond glisten, the towering height, even the style of clothes. Now I was drawn to this guy as lead is to a magnet.
"Pardon me, but do you have any gray poupon?" I asked jokingly. I loved watching people's reactions as they got the first glimpse into the wonderful world that I call Evan. A young man turned to me and strangly replied,
"Actually, I do." Well I couldn't help to laugh. No one had ever replied as that before and I intended to tell him that, but something immediately stunned me about this young man. He looked almost exactly like Jason from the front view as well. I quickly re-alligned my thoughts and began to talk to him.
"No one has ever reacted like that. Usually they think I'm weird and ignore me."
"The same thing happens to me, people just think I'm crazy or something."
"Yeah." Suddenly I burped, very loudly in fact. I think he was taken aback.
"Wow, pretty good for a girl. But for some reason, I thought girls were suppose to be lady-like."
"Not me, I could care less! You could pretty much call me a tomboy, or a tough girl. I only take shit from rich people because I'm use to them, but they don't really exist to me anyway. They're all fake."
"Strange. I never met a girl like you before," he kind of sang.
"Empire Records! I love that movie."
"Me too......And about the rich people, I know whatcha' mean," he nodded. I put on my fake English accent and asked the boy's name. So much interest had now built up, I had to know him now.
"So, what do they call you dear boy?"
"To my friends, you shall never speak it, but for you, it's Jordan," he stuck out a hand.
"Why won't I ever know what your chums call you?" I shook his hand and looked over him.
"Because, like I said, you're different than any person I've ever met, already, and I've met one hell of a load of people. So I figure you should call me something different than just any old biddy I know."
"Well well good chap, seems we are two peas in a pod. Usually when I drop that line, like I mentioned, I get weird looks or people telling me to 'run along dear child.' Therefore you must call me something out of ordinary. How about my middle name, no one dare call me by it. Shall I introduce myself in French?
"Nah, that's okay, I don't speak it."
"Okay, I want you to call me René. If I can't call you by your known name, you'll never speak mine. Now, tell me something about yourself."
"Well, I'm here with my father, who, is a recording studio owner. He's looking to sign new acts, and asked me to come along to help decide if we should sign a cool Australian band. Dad told me to stay here and wait for him while he is looking through the contracts in his room. I don't think he'll come out though."
"Wow, how nice of him," I laughed.
Jordan and I had walked around talking about nothing in particular. We were just kind of getting to know each other. I stared out into the waves, mesmerized by their constant bowing, it was like a mini show ended every ten seconds.
"So, what's your favorite book?" he asked. I suddenly perked up and rubbed my hands together with an evil grin on my face. "Maybe that wasn't the best question afterall."
"Well, you asked it, so now, you'll get your answer.......the hard way. I'll give you the quote, you name the book."
"Well, I've read a lot of books, so, I'm game."
"Okay, here goes.......'Is the word, then, so narrow? Doth the universe lie within the compass of yonder town, which only a little time ago was but a leaf-strewn desert, as lonely as this around us?'."
"Gimme another hint," Jordan seemed to be picking up something in his reading radar. He had a look of determination on his face as he concentrated on the lines fed to him.
"Um......'There, thou art free! So brief a journey would bring thee from a world where thou hast been most wretched, to one where thou mayest still be happy! Is there not shade enough in all this boundless forest to hide thy heart from the gaze of Roger Chillingworth?'." I gave him a big hint by naming someone.
"Oh, that's, uh, uh, Hawthorne's book....the......The Scarlet Letter."
"Very good Jordan! I'm impressed! The only reason I remember those lines is because I was part of a play production of a two act Scarlet Letter piece. It was fun, but I'm not so sure I liked acting all that much."
"Wow, that's really your favorite book?"
"Yeah, I like it a lot because of the old world language used to write it. Somewhat hard to understand, but once you have the hang of it, you can talk with such ease its amazing. My mother and I speak in it all the time. It's really funny to know that you are insulting each other in almost a whole different language." I felt my eyes sparkle just thinking about it.
"You are reeeeeeeally into that language, eh René?" Jordan laughed at me.
"Well, when my parents got divorced, it's the only thing I really did. I mean, reading the old Puritan writing, and Shakespearean writing."
"I love Shakespeare. He was a brilliant an noble soul."
"I must agree," I nodded. Before I realized it, it was dinner time. I spoke again with my English woman voice, "Join my mother and I for dinner young chap?"
"Why, I may as well, it's not like my father is coming for dinner. He's still looking over those bloody papers. Thanks for inviting me."
I decided to change up my languages on him,
"My my, why must thy mouth be a bubbling brook of obscenities dear child?"
"Wouldst I be thine own self if it was not? I mean, betwixt you and I, thou wouldst not be the same either," he spoke my language. I was now overwhelmed. Never had I met a man who could even understand half the things I said, well, until now.
"At least thou art not a half-wit." I smiled. He laughed and we approached the stairs to second deck.
<
"Wow, you guys have really good food up on top deck, talk about favoritism. It's like first class on a plane or something," Jordan replied sarcastically. The boat wasn't really divided into class sections, much. Earlier Jordan had commented on all the snooty people that turned their noses up as he and I walked past them.
"Ha, ha," I half-smiled. Jordan just devoured another plateful of food and had his eyes fixed on the buffet. Mom had gone off dancing with some man that she claimed was "sweeping her off her feet." I glanced over quickly and caught wind of them dancing. Mother looked almost genuinely happy, but I knew she was just on the rebound. After so many months of confinement, anything looked good to me too, especially Jordan.
"Child, how old are you?" I asked out of the blue.
"Old enough not to be called child."
"I call everyone child, well everyone younger than me."
"Well, how old are you René? Fifteen? Sixteen?" he asked.
"How about, nineteen," I mocked his tone.
"No way, you are not." He'd been relaxing back in his chair and suddenly sat up.
"As of January 24 I am."
"Damn, you are older than me, but only by about a month and a half."
"When's your birthday?" I asked, slightly bemused that he'd thought he was probably at least a year older than me, but was, now, disappointedly wrong.
"March 14th."
"Hmm, not far apart at all, at most six weeks, but probably not even." I paused, noticing him looking at the food bar again. "Well Jordan, what do you think about dessert?"
"Yeah, all I could think about were the lyrics going through my head, but I don't make music," I shook my head. I'm just not talented in that area. "I'm kind of more poetic backslash artistic type, so what I consider my lyrics, are stanza's and couplets and stuff, my instruments are a pad of paper and a pen, or acrylics and a white glass figurine, hell, even crayons and a coloring book are good enough for me."
"Well, where you are talented with poetry, and different types of arts, I fail. I am the musician, the romantic sketcher who can do paint by numbers and collages."
"Oooh, collages are fun! I think I'm going to get every magazine I have from the ninties and cut stuff out of them and reconstruct them as a ninties collage. I've wanted to do that for a long time, but I can only just now be brave enough to cut up the magazines I've cherished for so long."
"What was so important about them?" Jordan leaned against the rail, trying to pay as much attention to me as he was the water.
"Well, just teenage fantasies of meeting the boy of my dreams. The boy just happened to be wanted by at least half a million girls and was on the cover of every magazine with his brothers." I rolled my eyes at the memories of how obsessed I had been.
"Who was the object of your affection and for how long?" He watched the dark waves glide into the boat as more waves rolled in. Then he looked further out into the open yet, desolate sea.
"Well, I was completely obsessed with Taylor Hanson from the summer of 97 to the winter of 97. Then I lightened up and became a regular old fan. I got to catch about five concerts total, and then they broke up in 99. Damn, I was so mad. It was RIGHT after they released their new album too. I think I cried. Haha, I cried, the day they said good-bye." I couldn't help to laugh at my pun, but I realized Jordan was staring at me weird. "Ahem, anyway, I still like them to this day, but don't listen to the c.d.s much anymore. After my parents divorce and my personal tragedy, besides reading all the time, I tried to change my music style and started listening to depressing music. My Hanson collection, and all the memories that went with them, got stuffed into my brain vault and I just kind of forgot a lot of things I knew. I mean, I use to know Hanson's birthdays, favorite colors, whole names, the whole names of the family, how many pets they'd had, what their favorite foods were, all their songs and the words, especially to MMMBop. I swear I'm the only person in the world that STILL can recite every word to MMMBop besides Hanson themselves without getting a bit annoyed. Anyway, I tried to read more often than not." When I looked at Jordan, he was staring at me more intently, and now, gapingly.
"I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO STUPID!" I yelled at myself, throwing my pillows around my room. Jordan and I had stayed out 'til midnight, but what he said to me was now LODGED into my brain, probably forever, and I was so angry that I'd been so blind! I went over it in my head for the fifty millionth time that night. I'm sure he was sitting in his room, laughing his head off at my idiocity. I could even see him saying it, zooming in on his mouth, as the words formed, then staring in disbelief. He proclaimed it like this:
"Um, are you aware that your dreams came true Cinderella?" He'd stopped gaping and had began to speak.
"What are you talking about?" I quickly tensed up.
"Well..."
"Did I miss something? Was he on the boardwalk or something? Tell me....what did I miss!" I frantically raced through my memory, thinking that maybe I'd seen Taylor Hanson somewhere and hadn't recognized him and had missed him somewhere along the line. I couldn't think of anywhere that I could have seen him.
"If you'd give me a second, I can answer all your questions," he calmly replied.
"Sorry, I just can't believe I missed my one chance to meet him!" I whined; I'm good at that.
"You must have really liked him, well, what you knew of him."
"Yeah, I did," thinking back, I really had liked him a lot, "but I never got a chance to know him, so I guess he really doesn't count for anything but a crush." I slowed my rushing mind and sighed.
"Surprises come at the best times," Jordan stuck out his hand for a handshake, which was weird, cause we'd already had introductions. "Hi René, my name is Jordan, Jordan Taylor Hanson."
That was the point when I just about died. The point that made me feel like the biggest idiot in the world. For three years I'd absolutely adored Hanson, and I still liked them, yet I couldn't recognize one. I mean, I'd been sharing the last, twelve hours or so with TAYLOR HANSON HIMSELF, and I hadn't even known it!!! He said I was the first fan that he knew of, that didn't recognize him right of the bat. I was appauled at myself, but he seemed appreciative enough about the situation. The thing was, he'd matured and changed so much from the sixteen year old I'd last known of, I had missed the obvious! He'd had long blond hair then, really short now, he was much taller, which meant he was really tall, and of course, he'd built up some. The last picture or performance I'd seen (whatever it had been) he'd been a fairly scrawny, thin, chicken legged boy. Now he was a nicely toned young man, not to mention he was as tan as he could be. At least I realized WHY I hadn't recognized him right away, not to mention, I wasn't out exactly searching for him. I'd been searching for a companion, a compadre, a copain, anyone really, and I'd found him. Of all the people in the world, I found Taylor Hanson. I couldn't believe it! All those years of wishing, hoping and even praying, finally paid off. I had now met the man of my dreams. Suddenly, I wasn't so mad anymore and calmed myself. I decided just to go to sleep, afterall, I had a date in the morning.
We'd agreed to meet on the second floor billiards at 9 a.m. I, primped slightly, but figured there was no reason since he'd already seen me minus the make-up and all. But I did make sure to wear my lucky earrings. They were the dangly kind and they had black cats on them. On the way out, I grabbed my sunglasses and cascaded down the stairs to the billiards room. I already felt blissful in my journey down to the room, but just seeing Jordan, or, Taylor, or, Jordan there made my blood rush to my head and I felt slightly faint. Now, don't start acting like a teeny.....fainting for Jordan won't do a thing for you. I looked around and found him playing against another man. He looked up and saw me, and motioned that it'd would just take a little longer, so I took a seat and watched. He seemed very talented at this game and it was interesting to watch him beat a man that had to be thirty. When it was over, the man slipped Jordan a fifty and Jordan laughed.
"You really need that more than he does, don't you," I shook my head.
"Well, a bet is a bet....plus, he said he was on a billiards team, and I figured he'd win anyway. I suck at pool."
"Didn't look like it to me," I stood up.
"Tag, you're it!" He shoved my arm and began to run. I chased after him, out the billiards room and across the deck, finally catching up.
"I.....let....you....win," he coughed out between large inhalations of air.
"Sure, whatever."
"I was...monitoring your speed."
"Okay weirdo. Whatever floats your boat," I smiled.
"Water floats my boat," he grinned. I just pretended not to hear his stupid-yet-funny comments. I wasn't use to childishness and flirting, no one had flirted with me since.....Jason.
"So anyway, do you want me to call you Jas...I mean, Jordan still, or convert to Taylor?" We began walking again. I couldn't believe that I had almost called him Jason.
"Doesn't matter to me Jordan is kind of hard to answer too, I mean, since it wasn't my mother's voice yelling it with the rest of my name following suit, but I like the idea of being called something out of the ordinary," he smirked. We walked around the deck again.
"Haha, well, no one calls me René............anymore. When I was a kid, my dad thought Evan sounded like a boy's name, and despite my mother's objections, called me by my middle name instead. Figures."
"Well, I take it your parents haven't gotten along for awhile now."
"Nope, I was a suprise and that's the only reason they stayed together, and then, my mom found out my dad was way loaded, and took advantage of that. When dad figured it out, he found a woman he really loved, and screwed her brains out in my mom and dad's room. Oh-so-lucky for my mom to walk in and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, game over. No more happy little family."
"Now that, is a rough story," Jordan winced. "I wouldn't know what to do if my family split up like that."
"You probably would be about fifteen kids short," I laughed.
"Oh shush, there are only eight of us."
"Eight? Last time I heard, there were only seven." I couldn't believe their parents had another kid. They had to be in their late fourties.
"Well, there was this little girl, and mom felt so sorry for her.....so we adopted her. I'll tell you the story another time, but right now, I wanna show you something." He grabbed my hand and looked around as we headed down a dark corridor. "Is it me, or do we need a change of scenery?"
"Yeah, second deck was kind of getting...repetitious." We went down a flight of stairs and down onto the third level. I wondered why he was being so sneaky about everything. He looked left and right down another hall and we were back out on deck. We could have taken the stairs.
"Okay, we're almost there." He guided me around some deck chairs and looked around. The deck was empty, so he began to climb over the side of the boat.
"ARE YOU CRAZY?"
"Shhhh......look," he stood up on the other side of the railing. I didn't know what he was standing on, but it was supporting him.
"What are you standing on?" He folded his arms over the railing, rested his head on the bar and looked at me.
"A lifeboat."
"What was oh-so-important about showing me a lifeboat?"
"I take it you missed the lifeboats on your way onto the boat."
"Yeah, actually I don't recall looking for anything as interesting as lifeboats."
"Well little miss smart ass, peak over the side, and you'll see why it's so interesting." Smiling, he waved me closer to the railing. I was being cautious, afraid he would maybe pull me over the rail and into the boat, or worse yet. I doubted it, but you can never be too safe anymore. I got close enough to where I could peer over the side, and I was amazed. The lifeboat had to be able to hold at least a hundred people.
"Guess they learned from the Titanic, eh?" I retorted as he helped me over the railing. I tried to get over as quickly as possible. "I just hope the ropes don't break on us."
"They won't. Trust me." Something in his smile made me trust him even more than I already did. Which was very good for someone I've never actually met before. I felt connected to him though, like we were already good friends from a past time. I wonder why..........
"So," I clapped my hands together and sat down, "what do we do now?" As if on cue, when I clapped, a much, much louder clap was heard. And as for "what do we do now?" I hoped Jordan could read lips because it wasn't heard at all. We stood up and frantically looked around. It sounded like an explosion. Toward the back of the boat, we saw that fire was spurting from where the engines were located.
"What the...?!" Jordan yelled, catapulting himself back over the railing and toward the fire. I followed as quickly as possible.
God, please help everyone keep safe and watch over all of us, I silently prayed under my breath.
"Passengers of this ship, please evacuate to the third level deck. There are 20 lifeboats able to hold at least 105 people in each boat, board the boats with no luggage or extras, and there will be someone to release each boat. Please go calmly and quickly." The captain calmly announced. "I repeat..."
"Jordan, I have to go find my mom, I'll be back."
"NO RENÉ! She'll come down. Follow me!" I was torn on a split second decision. If I didn't go with Jordan, I may never see him again. If I didn't try to find mom, I may never see her again. Lord please let my decision be right. I ran with Jordan. He got to the life boats on the other side and began helping women and kids into each of the boats. I helped as well, especially in comforting little kids. As we were loading the second boat, more of the staff and crew of the ship were beginning to help, and urged us to get on.
"Not until all the people are off this ship," Jordan said. He had such a burning passion in his eyes that I believed that he would die himself before even one of the people on the ship were left aboard. Soon, to my surprise, we'd loaded up eight boats, and there were still no sign of my mom, OR his dad.
"I'm so glad we found you." I hugged my mom again. All the lifeboats had been loaded and began to carry away all the passengers. Now here we all were, 20 lifeboats, approximately 2,100 people, in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. I mean who knows how far we were from land. The captain had assured us he had radioed the coast guard and they said they'd be here as soon as possible, but we weren't out of the woods yet. A strong western current was bringing in a storm, and it didn't look pretty. I don't think I've ever prayed so much in my life. I closed my eyes, imagining that I was in a place far away from where I was. When I woke, rain drops were falling out of the dark sky and onto my face. The sky was a deep abyss of unforgiving black. We were now at the mercy of God, and mother nature.
"I love you mom," I held her closer.
"I love you baby."
I only remember a few things past our short conversation. The wind picked up and the waves became tempestuous, pulsating with the passion of the storm. And suddenly, our boat was being taken over by an enormous wave, and capsized.
I woke up and rolled over, staring into a bright light. Am I in Heaven? I smiled. I hope it was everything it was cracked up to be. Then I sat up and looked around me. I was sure as hell not in Heaven, let alone in the sky. I frantically glanced from side to side and tried to think of where I was and why. Then I remembered....the boat, I had been on the boat. Looking around and actually taking things in, I saw trees, sand and miles upon miles of water. I couldn't even conceive this as real. I'm probably sitting at the bottom of the ocean, and this is my conversion place from Earth to Heaven. I can't still be alive, can I? It was like my worst nightmare come true.
I was stranded.
Alone.
On a deserted island.
I was suddenly taken over by a strange memory. I'd been at school, where my friend me a question.
"If there was one person you could be stranded on a deserted island with, who would it be?" I can't remember my first reply, but if asked right now, I would answer, "The smartest person in the world, so I could get the hell off it!"
"Maybe I'm on the Florida coast," I thought hopefully, getting up. Yeah, you were in the South-Eastern Atlantic, and you think you would have made it to Florida without being devoured by sharks or sinking to the bottom of the ocean? Suuuure. I looked at the horizon. The sun was a few hours from sunset, which meant the way I was staring was west. If I turn to the right, then I'm facing north, that's where good ole' America is, well, most likely. So I'm somewhere South.....Southeast. After coming to that conclusion, I decided to explore. If I was going to keep myself alive long enough for the coast guard to find me, I'd have to make a living. Well, at least for tonight and maybe a couple days more. Hopefully, they'd show up sooner than planned.
I then began to prod around the island. It wasn't that big really. I estimated it to be about two miles around the whole place with maybe two to three miles in between. Too bad I'm not good at estimating. I stepped lightly near the water. One thing I was concerned about was trying to avoid wildlife. I did look for any signs of animals to try and discover what kinds were here and where they lived. I did not need a really big spider to approach me right now, nor a poisonous snake. I shivered just thinking about it. Rounding one of the big boulders, positioned oh-so-helpfully in my path, I screamed.
Another body.
It took me by surprise, but at least I could have a companion....if they were still alive. I dragged the body away from the waves and onto a more dry patch of sand. I rolled it over and screamed again. Suddenly my eyes began to glisten with tears. Jordan. I realized that as I'd thought it, I'd said it aloud. When he didn't respond to me calling his name, I put my ear to his mouth, listening for even a hint of breath. When one finally came, I went over to the water, picked some up in my hands and quickly returned to him, splashing what hadn't dripped out onto his face. He sort of convulsed a second, then coughed up some water, gagging and sputtering. He began to open his eyes, and then spoke, very softly.
"Wha...where am I?" When he looked over at me, he yelled in surprise and tried to stand up, but was only able to stumble backwards. I immediately went over to him trying to stand him up, while explaining who I was.
"It's me Jordan, René, remember?" I now stood him up.
"Re...René...is it really you? What happened? What's going on?" Asking numerous questions, I could see he was beginning to get his barrings back.
"The boat....it.....it sank," I shook my head, almost in disbelief of this tale even as I spoke it, "and then the storm did whatever it wanted to the people and the lifeboats. As far as I know, we're on an island and we're somewhere in the Southeast Atlantic. And as for the others, well, to my knowledge, we're the only survivors..." I trailed off. MOM!!!! I suddenly remembered that mom had been aboard the same lifeboat as I, as well as Jordan's dad. I started crying and quickly became hysterical. "My....mom..." I sobbed. I clicked something in Jordan's memory about his dad and both of us had a lengthy outburst of emotion. When I reaccumulated my verbal skills, I explained what I'd been doing. "I've been exploring, trying to find out as much as I can about the island. Looks as if we're going to be staying the night," I pointed out dejectively.
"Yeah, it does." Jordan stood up. I felt connected with Jordan right then. It was like we had the same problems, well, as of now, we did.
"Help me look for our parents. And we should probably try to find somewhere to stay."
"We need a fire too," he added. My mind began to wonder, thinking about my mom and where she was right now. I didn't want to give in to the thoughts that my mom could be dead, and until I find out otherwise, she's won't be! I refuse it! I felt the tears coming again and just couldn't hold them back. Giving in probably more than I should have, I turned back to him and hugged him, crying on his shoulder. I thought there were no more tears left by now, but there were. He must have seen how sensitive I really was when it came to mother by now and I didn't feel ashamed to cry in front of him. He put his arms around me, patting my back and trying to calm me. Despite his efforts to soothe me, I continued to cry; I needed my mom. Suddenly, I felt even more alone than I had been before.
"Wow, look how big those leaves are! They're bigger than me!" I observed a very large specimen of plant with giant leaves. I noticed water collecting in the basin of the plant.
"Yes, they certainly are. They just might come in handy soon. Good observation René," Jordan noted. We explored a little more, but soon returned to the place we'd picked for our campsite. "Well, we searched the whole island."
"No...no sign of them." I whispered. We'd searched the waterline of the whole island and had come up with nothing. It felt like only the few remaining shreads of my heart were now torn out as well. I sensed that now was not a a good time to break down. We only had about two precious hours of daylight left to find something for fire and something for shelter. Holding back my tears and biting my tongue, Jordan and I scouted out some small, dead trees, leaves, branches and anything else we could find for fire. I didn't talk or anything, I just continued to do whatever he told me. We discovered a sturdy tree by our beach camp site and decided to build by it. The large leaves of the tree made for a good rain guard; who knew when it would rain next.
"I'm glad my dad forced me to go to Boy Scouts," Jordan said, clicking two rocks together to start a fire.
"Me too," I tried to be cheery about the situation. I always tried to find the good in a bad situation, well, okay, not always.....well....now that I think about it, almost never, but now was a good time to start. At this time, I could only look to God for guidence. Jordan clicked the rocks together a few more times and, finally, a spark ignited a dead leaf, the rest caught on quickly. I didn't realize how wet and cold I'd been til I got close to the fire.
"Take your clothes off," Jordan stated blankly.
"Pardon me?"
"I said, take your clothes off. Just the outer layers. Having them cold and wet is worse than having none. I learned that in Boy Scouts too," he grinned. I complied, taking off my shirt and my pants. It did feel a bit warmer, but not before I felt cooler. After removing my clothing, I realized he was tieing a bunch of rootlike materials together. Next to him was a pocket knife.
"What are you doing?"
"Making a rope." I looked around. The tree five feet away from him had roots growing above the ground.
"Okay, now help me string this line from this tree to that one," he stood up, taking one part of the newly woven rope toward our lean-to tree.
"All right." I got up and helped him tie the other side of the roots to the tree he'd stolen them from. When it was tied and tightened as much as possible, we hung our clothes upon it.
"Now to find things for our shelter. This tree will work for one night, but I doubt it will last through a storm."
"Tomorrow Jordan, tomorrow. Right now, I'm beat," I yawned. What a busy day we'd had! Hopefully God had a survival plan for us. Too keep warm, Jordan and I agreed to sleep closely. I laughed.
"Whats so funny?"
"If my mom saw this, she'd flip." I laughed again and he joined in. I thought about my mom and prayed for her. I knew God would take care of her one way or another, so I decided I would try not to worry about it anymore. Soon, I could hear the constant, peaceful breathing of Jordan, along with the crashing of the mild ocean's waves. "Goodnight Jordan Taylor Hanson," I whispered. When I got home, this would make a great fan fiction story, only it would be fan non-fiction. I closed my eyes and slept.
I awoke to strange bird chirps. Man I'm hungry. I looked around and again had to realize where I was and why. It was still fairly early morning, and judging by the sun, it was about eight. I glanced over at Jordan, who was already working on something new.
"Man, you're good at this being stranded stuff," I walked over to him.
"I told you....Boy Scouts."
"So, what are you doing now?" I collected my clothes off the line. I noticed Jordan had done the same.
"Trying to invent something to sew with." Suddenly I smelled it.
"Do I smell....food?"
"Yeah, I woke up early and made kind of, well, a fishing pole, and caught some breakfast. It's still fresh if you want some, I saved some for you." I didn't like fish, but I wasn't about to be picky, especially when I didn't know when my next real meal would be.
"So, how'd you cook it?"
"See the rock in the middle of the fire?" he gestured toward the fire we'd built. There was a flat rock inside the middle of it, which I took the fish off of.
"Yeah, I see it."
"Well, I used it kind of like a frying pan. When the rock got hot, it cooked the fish, and then I ate it. It should still be warm." I patted it. Still warm. I thought about what I'd said to myself yesterday concerning the question my friend had asked; if I got stranded on an deserted island, who would I want there. I finally remembered who I'd answered, Taylor Hanson. I laughed to myself. Of course, I never really thought it would ever ACTUALLY happen. How ironic. Combining my answer from awhile ago and my answer now, I realized that both the answers were who I was stranded on the island with afterall, if that makes sense. See, Jordan was smart enough to at least keep us alive until help came and he was Taylor. I definitely would never have thought of anything he had already come up with, until I was in dire need of it.
"You're really smart."
"Thanks, I think," he smiled at me. Now he was doing something new. He'd made a sewing needle out of some sort of thick pine needle, or cactus pin looking thing, and he used root hairs as the thread. Those roots were really coming in handy.
"Gosh, what are you doing now?"
"Something you can help me with. Go over to that prickly plant and pull off about three of its quills." I did as told and brought them back. "Now take one of them and very carefully make slits in it at the top with my pocket knife until you can see a hole through it." I, again, followed his directions and succeeded in making three sewing needles.
"Not bad for a girl, eh?" I held them up. He laughed and told me now to go get some long, thin, but strong root hairs.
"Okay, now's the hard part. We have our thread and needles, now we have to find humungous leaves. I know this place has some, you noticed them, in fact. Yesterday, you complimented on their largeness."
"Oh yeah, the ones bigger than me!"
"Yeah, with those, we shall sew a small hut." On that note, I felt like a seemstress crossed with a construction worker.
"What about, like, frame-work?"
"That's where you come in my dear. You will find sticks, straw, strong roots and anything else you can find to bind together a tent-like structure, big enough for the both of us to fit in. Then I'll make the covering. Kind of like making a tent."
"Would you like an armchair and a fireplace with that?" I joked.
"Actually, a reclining armchair would be of use right now..."
We worked all morning and well into the afternoon finding what we needed and slowly, but surely, pieced together what looked like a tent. I knew the winds could be strong, so I decided I would reinforce the sides of the tent with other sticks. Reinforcement was a good idea because the sides were going to be made of leaves and they would fly up and allow everything in easily. While I was trying to find stuff, I picked up a fairly large branch, revealing a snake. Being from Texas, I knew the best thing to do was stand as still as possible.
"Jordan...." I yelled wearily, knowing he was close by.
"Yeah?" He heard the slight urgency of my voice and began walking toward me.
"There is a snake less than three feet from me. You didn't happen to learn about snakes in Boy Scouts, did you?"
"Only about snake bites, but I know that if you encounter one, especially if you don't know if its poisonous or not, you're suppose to stay still..."
"Then slowly, but surely back away. Yeah, I know, I'm from Texas. But it's reassuring to know you're there, standing behind me incase I freak out and run like hell." I was backing up as I was talking to him. "But, you know, I'm more scared of spiders than snakes, so as long as we don't see any of those, I'll be fine."
"I'm not much of a spider fan myself, bad experience as a kid."
"Did one drop from the ceiling onto your face?" I was now standing next to him, still slowly backing away from the snake who was now slithering the other way.
"Yeah, actually it did. It was really scary. Luckily it was only a little one."
"I had a spider crawl over me once. Scared the CRAP out of me." I added to his experience.
"Okay, enough spider talk, let's get back to work. If we get all this done by dinner, maybe I can grab a few more fish."
"By the way, what did you use for bait?" I inquired. This was just incase I wanted or need to go fishing myself.
"A grub I found under a rock. To make a fishing pole, I took some string from my shirt, your earing hook, which I sharpened, and a twig."
"Ingenious." I laughed, then I thought about it, "Those really are my lucky earrings, they are helping save our lives."
"Too bad you only have one now." He reached for it and took it out, "What could I use the rest for?"
"Ha. Give me that and get back to finding stuff. I wanna collect this stuff and build our house."
"Ah, building a dream house with my wife.....something I've always wanted to do," Jordan joked. Even though I knew he was joking, it felt really nice to be called his wife. Maybe someday....in my dreams....wait, I've already had that dream. I definitely don't need repetition in my dreams, now I need........reality. We got back to work.
"Jordan, come here!" I'd found something that could help us out.
"Yeah?" He half ran over to where I was at.
"Look," I pointed skyward. The large tree in front of us had ripe fruit hanging from its branches.
"Is that a pineapple tree?"
"René, pineapples don't grow on trees," he covered his mouth in an attempt not to laugh at me.
"Oh." I looked away, feeling the red run to my face. I wanted to cover for my blunder, but I couldn't think of anything intelligent to say.
"It's a coconut tree. Now we can have a good dinner of fish, if I can catch some and coconut. Now our only problem to solve is getting it down."
"For once, I'm going to be the smart one." I picked up a rock, aimed and chunked it at the top of a coconut. It hit the fruit and knocked it from its branch. The coconut fell right into my arms.
"Nice shot!"
"Thanks! Playing softball for five years finally paid off for something." It felt nice to be the one to do something for once. Jordan watched as I knocked two more down. Plenty for dinner. We returned "home" happy.
By the end of the afternoon, around early evening, our "dream house" was built and we were eating.
"Pass me the knife please."
"Remember, use the cork screw to dig into the coconut, so that you can drink the juice inside. We won't live long without water."
"I know, and we can't use the ocean water....its too salty...how are we going to survive?" We had a shelter, we had food, our only problem now, was water.
"Well, my mom would always take tap water and boil it when we lived in Trinidad. The water was putrid, because we lived a good distance from a city. Maybe if we can make a pot out of something, we can get ocean water and boil it to seperate the nasty stuff and water. We still can't drink it, but we could at least clean up with it that way."
"Good thinking yet again. Tomorrow is elected the day for finding a pot. I'd say we're doing pretty good for being stranded on an island, don't you think?"
"Definitely. Livin' good on the bad side of town..." he laughed. I prepared my coconut and he sliced into his. I realized how dehydrated I must have been by the way I thirstily drank the contents of the coconut.
"There's so much we take for granted when everything is handed to us on a silver platter," I sighed.
"I know....you never realize it until it's taken away, and then you just take it for granted when you get it back......if you get it back."
"I would give my left arm for a boat to go home in." After dinner, Jordan and I watched the sunset. Tomorrow would clock two days of being stranded, and still no help. I prayed as I do every night, but this was full of special prayers, said aloud, instead of to myself. I always made sure Jordan was asleep before I'd pray.
"...and God, please protect Jordan and me from the harmful wildlife, weather and whatever else that could hurt us, and watch over us carefully. And please don't forget to take good care of my mother and Jordan's father while they're wherever they are. And please bless our families back home who are probably worried sick. And I'm sorry, I know I'm asking a lot, but if it isn't too much trouble, could you please give the coast guard guys just a little help? I'd really like to get home and sleep in my own bed, although sleeping cuddled up with Jordan isn't the worst thing in the world. Thank you God, Amen." As I unclasped my hands, I suddenly sensed Jordan smile. I know that sounds weird, but it's almost as if he'd heard my prayers.
"A storm is brewing René." Jordan noted aloud. I looked to the west and saw clouds that were almost as black as the ones that had landed us here.
"The wicked wind of the west is at it again," I joked.
"Haha, that was pretty good."
"Thanks, but if we wanna' find a pot, we'd better hurry." The wind began picking up and blowing loose leaves and sand around. We ususally left the fire burning, incase a plane flew over, but now was a good time to go back to camp and put it out. I really didn't feel like being on an island that was on fire, although it just may attract the attention we need, it wasn't worth the risk. On the way back to camp, we walked along shore looking for washed up things from the wreck. So far we'd found a few boards we could use for firewood when they dried, some odds and ends such as combs, even an empty suitcase had washed ashore. We decided we were going to let it dry, and store food and things in there, so that animals couldn't get to them.
"Jordan, what's that thing over there?" Something was floating towards us. It looked like a bag of some sort.
"I don't know, I'll wade out and see," he said, pulling his pants up to his thighs. As he went into the water, I thought about baths. I could probably at least wash off the dirt or something in the water. I didn't even wanna feel my hair, and didn't know how Jordan could possibly stand to rest his chin on it when we slept. I didn't feel bad because his hair was scraggly as well. When he returned, I noticed the faded plastic bag looked familiar.
"MY BACKPACK!" I squealed in delight. I knew there would be some helpful items in there. I ran back to camp with it, knowing our search for a pot would be over. Jordan followed me and upon reaching "home", I opened the backpack. The contents were in good shape because the cheap plastic bag had floated well without drawing too much water in. "Okay, we have BOINGO!" I cuddled the slightly roughed up stuffed animal and continued, "two day old cookies and banana bread, probably still edible and sealed in a plastic bag, a quick flash camera, yay, four bottles of water to drink, a steel can in which we could boil water in, and some pens and pencils, with my diary that has some water-logged pages."
"Good thing this was cheap plastic, I'm glad." Jordan ran his hand over the faded blue.
"Me too! I love my cheap plastic backpack and it's cheap plastic lunchbag."
"God really did help us out today René. It's a miracle your bag showed up at all." Jordan bowed his head, I assumed, giving thanks to the Lord. "Now tell me about this Boingo character." I told him the short and sweet version.
"I got him from an old boyfriend and cherish it so dearly." He looked oddly at me, then we put everything back into the bag and went into the tent as the storm got closer.
Three days. Three days we'd now been here. I woke up thinking, Where the hell is the coast guard that the captain supposedly called? Last night, when Jordan had hugged me before bed, I realized that I was sunburnt, as did he. The sand scraping against us isn't helping, and we had to retrieve the giant leaves to make a bed floor. It was much more comfortable that way, much cooler as well. To me, it seemed like it should have been a week now, but I'm glad it wasn't. We're so fortunate to have the luck we'd had with being stranded. I mean, we have food, water, clothing, fire, shelter, each other...very lucky. Speaking of shelter, my reinforcement held up well during the ferocious storm last night. Jordan and I were alert through the whole thing.....lightning, thunder, rain, wind.....it scared us. Speaking of weather, we couldn't have landed here at a worst time. It wasn't that the days were scorching hot or the nights are freezing cold, it's just that its a terribly stormy season. I laid in the tent, thinking of how lucky we were, and how strangely well everything had gone. Something was amiss.....why hadn't any really bad stuff happened to us yet. I mean, besides being stranded on an island and losing our parents, nothing really bad had happened to Jordan and I. I got up and wrote of what had happened so far in my diary. When I was signing my name, a loud yelling cut through my thoughts. JORDAN! It certainly couldn't be anyone else. I ran out of the tent to see Jordan scale a tree like I've never seen anyone before. Then I saw the problem. Some kind of wild pig with fangs had chased him up there and Jordan was now screaming my name.
"RENÉ GET HIM AWAY FROM MEEEEEEEEE!"
"Don't worry, I will!" I definitely could not just go over there and sweet talk the damn thing away from him. I slowly went into my backpack, under full surveillance of the pig thing, grabbed a cookie out of my sack and tossed it toward him. The pig nonchalantly trotted over to it, sniffed it, tasted it, ate it, then trotted almost happily back into the woods.
"What happened?" I asked, watching Jordan jump from the tree branch he was on, into the sand. He grimaced in pain as he landed and kind of limped over to me.
"Well, I was out collecting some firewood, when all of the sudden I heard this snorting." Suddenly a snort came from behind Jordan and his eyes grew wide.
"Kind of like that?" I asked, becoming as wide-eyed as he.
"Not kind of like that, exactly like that! RUN!" His wound was quickly forgotten for the time being and he sped past me. I ran as well, glancing behind me every once in awhile to see the wild pig hot in pursuit.
"This thing just won't give up!" I said, running next to Jordan.
"No kidding, turn through here!" Jordan ran through some trees, probably in hopes of loosing the pig, but no luck. It just kept on trucking. "DUCK!!!! SPIDER WEB TWELVE O'CLOCK!" I looked ahead first, and in seeing the size of the spider, almost collapesed right into the damn web. But I got my senses back quickly and ducked, inches from the reach of the monster spider.
"If I wasn't running from a wild boar, I might have cared about the size of that spider."
"I almost ran into the damn thing René, I saved your ass as well!"
"Thanks!" I figured there wouldn't be too much more talking, I was running out of breath. I turned around to see if the pig was still chasing us, but it seemed to have ceased. No more pig. "Jordan..." I slowed, panting helplessly, "the pig is gone." I walked to the edge of the trees, where the beach was and plopped down at the shoreline. I splashed water on my hot face and let the refreshing coolness run down my neck. When we got back to camp, I would definitely take a small swim. Jordan sat down next to me, pouring water on himself as well.
"So, finish your story.....about the pig chasing you."
"Oh yeah.....anyway, I heard the snort," both of us turned around and looked behind us to ensure that there was no grunting little pigs waiting for that line, "well I turn around and lo and behold there is this cute little pig thing behind me. I figure, well, its small and doesn't look dangerous, so I'll just walk away. But as so as I turn around to walk away, it rams its little face into the back of my leg. Got me pretty good with it's tusk." He twisted his leg to my viewing and I shuttered just looking at it. We had to get it clean or he would be prone to infection.
"Let's go home, I'll get some water boiled and you finish telling me your story."
"Okay." Even being a good six inches shorter than him, I attempted to help him limp back to camp. From a distance, that must have looked very comical. Hop-along and Shorty, what a dynamic duo. As we got up to walk home, he spotted something a little downshore from where we were at. "What's that?" he pointed. We walked toward it and saw that it was another bag.
"It's a suitcase! But it's locked.....give me your pocket knife." I tried the latches again, to make sure it wasn't just securely fastened. He reached into his pocket and tossed me the knife. I stabbed it into the top, cutting a hole into the leather. "Someone's going to be pissed at me one day." By the looks of it, teenage girl clothing was inside the suitcase, as well as a hairbrush and some other vanity items. Nothing of real use, but I took some of the clothes. "I may end up crusty on this island, but at least I won't be crusty in the same pair of clothes," I added on a humorous note. With my new clothes, we walked home, well, he limped, I walked. Going back to camp, I noticed a familiar kind of plant.
"Is that what I think it is?" I asked, approaching the plant. "IT IS! Jordan, look!" I picked off a stem of the plant. Aloe. With our sunburn, this was a great discovery. I collected some and we attempted yet another time to reach camp. Maybe we'd get there with no more interruptions. We made it and upon our return, I dug in my backpack and removed a few of the band-aids and the can. I tore a piece off my shirt, since I had plenty of new clothes, and filled the can with ocean water.
"Finishing my story.......I hauled serious ass back to camp, and the pig chased me, of course, so I ran up the tree, and screamed at the top of my lungs so you'd save me. And now, along with the lovely inventions I've cooked up, I have to invent a weapon, to protect us."
"What about the knife you had in your pocket all along?" I inquired.
"I didn't wanna kill the poor little thing, but it was obviously bloodthirsty."
"So that's not gonna work.......hmmm.....how about you bind some of those sharp spikes from that plant around a semi-large stick. Would that work? Kind of like a spear of some sort. I feel like we're on that movie, King of the Flies or something.....where the kids get stranded on the island and they kill the fat kid."
"You're weapon idea would probably prove effective enough, but you're comparison of us and that movie, I'm gonna have to disagree." I guess I'd finally started forming smart ideas too, now that I'd been around Bobby Boy Scout so much. The water was boiled now and I dipped my shirt into it, cleaning it off some, and then applied it to the wound. He winced at the feeling of salt being rubbed into his wound. After the slice was clean and dry, I put the band-aids on it. Then we rubbed ourselves down with aloe. A doctor, just like mom. I sighed, thinking of my mother. Hopefully I'd see her soon. I took out my camera and took pictures of what we made a living of and I took some of my little crippled Jordan. He had his shirt off and was sitting by the shore. I couldn't bare not to take the picture. At sunset, I made him sit on a rock so I could take the picture of his silhouette. Man, I couldn't wait to get those pictures developed. I now prepared for bed, writing in my diary. I realized that this would be a very good thing to have over the days that we're stranded. Jordan came in and went right to sleep. I watched him for a bit, making notes in the margins of my diary, and soon I found myself yawning and realizing it was time to sleep. On to day four.
"Jordan, have you seen my..." I walked out of the tent looking for my banana bread, and Jordan was standing there in his boxers. Not a bad thing to come out to.
"Yessssss?" he looked at me, smiling deviously.
"...banana bread....did you eat it?"
"Yes I did." He came up and stood next to me.
"What are you doing?"
"What? I'm not doing anything at all." He was playing innocent. I wasn't stupid, I could tell something was about to happen.
"Jordan," I put a strong tone in my voice.
"René," he mocked me.
"I am not an object of mockery. I do not appreciate..." he picked me up.
"Your endless babbling, so I'm going to throw you in the ocean," he finished my sentence. Of course I protested and squealed in hopes he'd put me down and just leave me. He did put me down though, but not to free me. "Okay, I'm giving you one chance to take off anything you don't want wet." Of course I took off my shirt and pants, since they were the only clothing I would be willing to take off. And figuring it was only me and him for probably a hundred mile radius, the thought of taking off all my clothes did cross my mind. But then I remembered what was in the water and decided to keep my shoes, and underwear on.
"Okay, come and get me." I sprinted off, hoping I could escape him by out running him. Hurt leg or not, Jordan was a speed demon. He immediately took off after me and tackled me to the ground. It wasn't gently, but it was almost stort of graceful the way we both fell and hit the ground. It didn't really hurt, but it didn't feel the greatest to be covered in sand either. I couldn't control my laughter, and laughter is contagious, so, it was pretty much me and him, laughing like half-nude nutcases. Well, we were half-nude nutcases covered in sand. I slowly stopped laughing and it was like one of those moments on a t.v. show. You know, the ones where the girl runs from the guy, the guy chases the girl, tackles her gently, they laugh and as it ceases, they look into each others eyes, and then they kiss. But instead of kissing him, I rolled out from under him and went into the water, washing off the sand.
For dinner we had only coconut. Jordan didn't have a chance to go fishing, and it looked as if it would be another stormy night.
"Jordan, tell me stuff." I joined him next to the fire.
"Like what?" He ate another piece of coconut. I sat down Indian-style and threw a leaf into the fire.
"I don't know....like what it was like to be famous and stuff, what it was like being a Hanson, and why you guys broke up! Or better yet, what everything's like behind the scenes. I know there has to be some secret stuff you can spill."
"Hmm....what it was like to be famous. Imagine having two million people watch you everytime you're on t.v., or half a million people coming to see you, or having people thinking of you every second of the day. Not to mention the fact that you can't go anywhere because people either hate you and wanna kill you, or they love you and will accidentally kill you. Okay, that was more of being a Hanson, but famous......it's like living under a microscope. That's why we tried as much as possible to keep our family life secret. Somehow, people pryed into that as well, and we decided that that was going too far, and the band broke up. But that wasn't the only reason. We were all fighting over stupid things, like who should sing what vocals and things while recording the album. Not to mention Isaac was seriously considering college, for some unknown reason."
"Wow.....I'm sorry, so you guys were just about as upset about it as we were." I laid my head on his shoulder, offering a sort of solace.
"Yeah, we still play, just, not really together."
"Do you like Limp Bizkit?"
"Yeah, they're awesome, although, they'd probably kick my ass if I went to their concert, or someone else would. I'd definitely have to go incognito," Jordan half laughed.
"Not fair, eh?"
"No. Not really."
"What's it like?" I sighed, looking into the depths of the red, yellow and orange flames, burning in front of me.
"What....what's what like?"
"Being judged by the music you make? And is it all worth it?"
"Yes, it sucks royally. It definitely sucks more than being judged by the music you listen to. I've yet to find out if it's all worth it. I mean, everyone's always in your business, you get made fun of, you live under a microscope...and for what.....money....no, it wasn't about the money......it was fun. Okay, it was fun at first, then it was for the money, then the fun went out, and the money stopped coming. Then, like that," he snapped for effect, "it was all over. The fifteen minutes of fame ran out, and so did the fifteen million dollars." He looked sadly at me. I didn't know what to say to that, and figured I'd move on to another topic.
"Um.....what's the weirdest or most disgusting thing someone ever gave, sent or threw at you."
"Weirdest thing that sticks out in my mind is, definitely a bra, although, someone threw a bar of soap at me one time. I'm not sure if they were aiming to kill, or if I just seemed to need a bath." He flashed me a cheesy smile then continued. "The grossest thing ever given to me? A trash can of dirty diapers was delivered to us. There was a note included that said, Here's the only thing that stinks worse than you. Someone had actually put diapers in a box, paid postage and everything else, and sent them to us. Very, very bad smell. I really hope I never smell that bad. Even though I probably come close right now. Don't you feel dirty René?"
"Yes, I feel completely and utterly disgusted with my dirty, nasty, unwashed, unkept self. If that makes you feel any better."
"Great, I'm not alone. Okay René, now tell me stuff about you."
"Wait, one more question....how many girlfriends have you had and have you ever been in love?"
"No fair, that's two...oh well. I've had one girlfriend. See, after my ex and I broke up, I've been too depressed to see anyone. That's why I thought this vacation with dad would be good for me."
"So this ended fairly recently?"
"Yeah, kinda, about three years ago now," he looked away, almost ashamed. "Oh, and about the love thing, I did think I was in love for awhile. This girl I'd known since I was a kid had been pursuing me for a long time. I didn't have a clue until she told me."
"Wow, must have been special."
"Yeah, she was, but it's like, I keep thinking no one can compare to her, I mean, she was so....so, perfect. I mean, the way she walked, talked and even manner she acted in was perfect. Tara and I went out for four years, from when I was about twelve, to when I was sixteen. Then one day, out of the blue she comes up and....," he stopped, drawing in a large breath of air, "I remember it like it was yesterday....she goes, 'Taylor, I've been cheating on you. Adam and I have been going out for three months behind your back and I decided to be up front with you. So we're over now, I love Adam." He turned his face toward the sea. It was dark out and the moon's reflection was projected over the water which distorted it's shape. He sucked in another breath, and I could tell he was really fighting the urge to cry now. The muscles in his jaw and face began to tense up, then he continued, "Adam had been my best friend for three years." He gave up holding back his tears, allowing them to glide over the curves of his cheek and drip off his chin. "I tried to stay friends, but I just couldn't bear to see them together." Poor Jordan went from crying simple streams to rushing rivers. This was the works, he was bawling, and I just couldn't stand it. I hugged him and he responded generously by taking me up into his arms. It was so hard to see him cry. I found myself fighting back tears, but I didn't even last a few seconds before the tears found their way out.
"You know whats so weird?" I asked, sniffling. He didn't answer, so I just kept talking. "I was such a big fan, and I admired your music, your talent, but most especially, you guys just as people. At first I thought you were saints, but then I came to my senses and realized that you were regular teenagers with regular problems and everything else, and every night I would pray that you were having a better life than I was. I cried almost every night listening to my parents bitch at each other, sometimes they'd go almost all night. And a lot of times my dad or mom would leave and drive off somewhere, tires squealing. I would pray to God that something would keep me strong, and keep me from going insane and killing myself, or worse, killing my parents. I'd pray while I was listening to my parents fight, so God and I developed a good relationship. I know, that's my sob story, but I just could help but to tell you that. I don't know why, it really didn't have anything to do what with we were just talking about. I guess I just always figured that you guys had the perfect lives. I looked up to you, like, to have a goal, ya know? Something to keep me going." After my speech, he brought himself to talk again.
"I'm really sorry. I wish your prayers would have worked then because maybe I wouldn't have become so depressed after she left me. I mean, I lost my best friend and long time girlfriend. If you calculate it, it was another factor that went into breaking up the band. I mean, the 'teen idol' was depressed, Zac had developed an attitude that was beyond bareable, and Ike, Ike decided to move into his own world.....I guess he was just sick of everyone." Now I didn't feel so alone anymore. Jordan and I had both had our share of troubles, and now that we'd gone over the worst of them, I told him about my lost love.
"Jordan, what do you think the worst part about losing love is?" I asked him with full intention of telling him my reason.
"When it's to go to someone else," he was sure of himself on this one. I nodded in agreement with him because that was pretty bad, but not the worst. My love had still loved me.
"I think the worst part about losing love is that it doesn't always come back."
"True, especially if they're with your best friend," Jordan added.
"Or, they die." I looked down. He immediately looked down at me and I sat up. I could see many questions swirling in his eyes.
"Did," he hesitated, "did you have someone that loved you die René?"
"Yeah, I'll share my story, but let me collect my thoughts." I took in a deep breath as he had before telling his lost love story. "Okay, my boyfriend and I had been together almost three years. We were on a roll and had plans to go to college seperately, but get back together afterwards. We knew we'd need the space. On our third anniversary, April 14, he was driving over to pick me up. We were gonna go out and catch a movie and then some dinner." I smiled, reliving the nice part of night, "I was so excited. I mean, we'd survived three years! I was on the phone with my best friend Lori, who'd called me to tell me she'd scored a date. We were so excited and together none the less, then my phone beeped and I clicked over," my smile diminished, "it was Jason's mom. She told me..." I refused to hold the tears back; I hadn't told this story practically since it had happened, "...she said Jason got hit by a drunk driver head on in his car, and he was in critical condition. I raced to the hospital to be by his side. I was the last person he talked to, the last person he saw, and the last person he loved. Even though I was holding his hand, I knew he was in so much pain......he looked absolutely shredded. My head told me to let him go, but my heart was very reluctant. Since I loved him, I had to let him go. He didn't make it through the night. The last words he said to me were I love you Evan, and I'm sorry. I don't know what he was sorry for, but he never said anything after that. He just.....slipped away." Jordan managed to hug me and we cried together. "I was able to give a eulogy at his funeral, and I sang "Wind Beneath My Wings" which described our relationship. It was the only time I've ever carried a note like I was suppose to. He did write a will though. It was some weird assignment for school and he bequeathed me the stuff I gave him and some other possessions of his, but most importantly, his locket. This locket." I took it out of my shirt and showed it to Jordan. Inside was a small picture of he and I, and also one of his mother and father. After talking a little more and offering a little solace, both of us were exhausted physically and mentally. We put the fire out, going straight to bed afterward. I would have to write in my diary tomorrow.
The next morning I awoke to find Jordan dressing.
"What are you doing?" I knew he had no other clothes than the ones he was wearing from the boat, unless he was borrowing mine now.
"I found another suitcase, this time it was a man's. The clothes are baggy, but oh well, I'm not going to be picky."
"You look good in baggy clothes, but don't get me started on clothing taste, I'll fight you to the death. I'm going back to sleep." I stated. I remembered what he use to wear, when he was famous, and giggled.
"What's so funny?"
"I was just thinking of how you use to dress. With you being in the spotlight, I must have witnessed some of the worst clothes in the world. But those tight pants did wonders for your butt." I mumbled in limbo between sleep and conciousness. I don't remember him replying to that, so I guess I fell asleep.
"I feel really dirty now," Jordan stated suddenly. We'd been talking in the tent about a little bit of everything when Jordan blurted this out.
"Meeeeeee too!" I had to agree. I hadn't had a real shower in who knows how many days now. I've seem to have lost count! Rightfully so seeing that each day runs into the next like a never ending traffic accident.
"I wish I could take a bath, maybe brush my teeth, ya know. Even shaving would be a privilege right now." I studied his face and came to the conclusion he'd probably never shaved in his life figuring he'd have had stubble by now.
"Do you even shave?" I asked carefully.
"Yes.........well......sometimes........okay.....I have a couple times, but it just doesn't wanna grow!"
"Haha, don't feel bad. You probably wouldn't look good with a goatee or a mustache anyway."
"I'd at least like to find out," he rubbed his chin. I paused for a moment, then decided to try to start a weird conversation with Jordan. I wanted to see how he would react to things I told him about me.
"Oh man, I'd hate to see my legs right now. Not that I would have shaved even if I was home."
"Do you not shave your legs?" Jordan asked semi-disgustedly. The look on his face was priceless. I wished I hadn't used all my film up.
"Well, not usually for two or three weeks. Sometimes the same for under my arms. And speaking of that," I peeked into my shirt for an added effect, but was overwhelmed by what I did see, "I really need a razor."
"Oooooookay. Did anyone ever tell you that you are a complete psycho René?"
"Actually, all the time."
"Good, it's well deserved," he grinned ear to ear as he said that.
"What? What are you grinning at?" I wiped at my face to make sure there was nothing on it, and this sent him into a laughing fit. Just something about watching him doubled over, made me start to laugh. I didn't know what I was laughing about, but it was so much fun to laugh again. When he calmed down, he tried to explain to me what happened.
"Okay, when you were sitting the way you were, you reminded me of when Tara thought she was going to be a model. She posed in the craziest positions that looked more like stuff in porn mags than modeling poses. The day she showed me her poses, I couldn't help to laugh. It was just so funny to see her like that. She certainly didn't get the modeling job, but dirty magazine companies called her." He began to laugh again, this time with me joining in because I wanted to. I was glad we could both reflect back on our ex's and still remember the good times.
"Jordan, what was your favorite thing about Tara or a special memory that will stick in your mind forever?" I suddenly became quite serious and interested in this topic. His laughing ceased and then he thought a moment.
"My favorite thing about her was the way she would make me feel like a million bucks. I mean, no matter how bad I felt, she was there to bring a smile to my face," he smiled, recalling this part of their life together, "and the memory that will stick in my mind forever.....hmmm. It would have been my uncle's wedding. I was allowed to invite her along and she looked absolutely gorgeous. When we danced together at the reception, she was so graceful. It was almost as if her feet didn't touch the ground at all."
"That sounds like a fond memory. I wish I could dance."
"Haha, can't you? It's easy, have you ever tried?"
"Once Jason tried to take me dancing and I ended up tripping over his feet as well as my own. We both went home with sore toes and agreed never to dance again." I had to laugh at myself, I felt stupid for not knowing how to dance.
"Hahaha......well, did you try slow dancing?"
"Only when our toes got really sore," I grinned, "and I still stepped all over our feet."
"Here, I'm going to teach you how to dance. Come here." He extended his hand, offering to help me up. I squeezed my knees to my chest.
"No, that's okay, I don't think you want your toes all squashed."
"Yes I do, my toes love to be squashed." I laughed at him and placed my hand cautiously in his. He lifted me up and placed me in front of him. "Now, you don't know how to slow dance, right?"
"Right. Its embarrassing when I go wherever there is dancing and don't."
"I bet, but we're going to fix that right now. Give me your hands," he strategically placed my hands and feet in positions. "Okay, now just close your eyes and follow my lead, I promise this is not hard."
"Okay," I said trustingly. "Wait! Can't dance without music."
"Fine, I'll sing. Um...." he began humming the song "Sittin on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding. At first, I tried to move my feet, stepping upon Jordan's toes. "Just relax, go with the music in your heart, don't try to think about what you're doing..." I immediately relaxed, listening intently to the soft hum escaping his lips. Soon he and I were both quietly singing the words and I layed my head on his shoulder. "You're dancing like a beauty queen," he whispered in my ear. I realized I was doing it, I was actually dancing.
"Thank you.....you're the only person who cares enough to try to teach me." I instantly regretted those words, feeling as if I'd just wronged Jason by speaking them. But that night, he never tried to teach me, he just stuck me in the middle of the floor, made me nervous, and told me to dance. He gave me no instructions on where my hands were suppose to go, or how I was suppose to stand or anything like Jordan had just done. I suddenly felt closer to Jordan than ever before, even more than when we shared our love woes. I hugged him closer to me as we continued our rhythmic movements.
"Jordan, there are no more coconuts in the suitcase, can you go see if there are anymore on the trees?"
"Okay, I'll go." He walked off in the direction of the one coconut tree we had. We'd been careful with our water supply, and still managed to drink it all up. And since it was time for low tide, the fish were further out, in other words, they were out of reach. If there were no more coconuts, we had enough to last us...one day probably. Would that be enough? I doubted it. Thinking to myself about how much things had began to go downhill, Jordan showed up.
"None."
"None? None at all? Jordan, we have about enough food to last us one day. The fish are out too far, there are no animals on this island except a really big spider and one scary pig thing, and maybe a snake or two. We have no more fruit, and we don't know what is and isn't safe to eat. We're going to run out of food!" I became suddenly hysterical, considering my irrational thoughts of dying caused by lack of food.
"Calm down, it's okay." Jordan grabbed me and even though I was squirming and thrashing, he held me until I'd calmed down some. "You have to think. The human body can last a lot longer without food than it possibly could without water. As long as we have water, we'll be hungry, and probably half-parished by the time they find us, but not dead. Without water we'd become atrophied and that would kill us quickly."
"So in other words, we're dying slowly and painfully of starvation."
"No, because they're going to find us," Jordan stated matter-of-factly. I then remembered I was suppose to be the one with all the faith.
"Yeah, we are." Thunder rumbled in the distance. The thunder somehow made me think of rain which lead to the thought of then water and then plants. Thinking of water and plants clicked something, something that could save our lives. "JORDAN!" I must have startled him because he jumped almost ten feet.
"Yes?" he looked at me as if to say: What do you want? Your not content with scaring the shit out of me?
"Remember, when we were first exploring, the leaves that were bigger than me? I noticed that that plant carried a lot of water in it's basin because it grows out of the ground, and since its been raining a lot, we could probably boil the water from the plant and drink it!"
"That is probably one of the best ideas you've had yet. I'll go fill up the can."
"Great! I'll get it!" I sprinted to retrieve the can, noticing the thunder was getting closer.
"The west harkens to me yet again." Jordan looked over the western front and noticed the waves begin to rise. The storms were no longer an anomaly to us.
"It's just one of those days where you don't want to wake up, everything is fucked, everybody, except Jordan sucks," I sang. I was so deprived of music, I'd forgotten I was with a prestigious singer. "Do you know what a philatelist is?" I decided my brainpower, well, big vocabulary would be superior to his, and then I could force him to sing to me.
"Stamp collector," he said it with such ease as he prepared the camp for the storm.
"Damn," I threw down a stone.
"Why?"
"I was hoping if you didn't know what it was, I could force you to sing me a song."
"Why didn't you just ask?" he raised his eyebrows at me.
"I'm not exactly thinking straight here." I laughed at my own stupidity. All I had to do was ask. "Will you sing me something Jordan?"
"What do you want to hear?"
"Well, not right now, when the storm is going, and I'm scared, I'd like you to sing a song of my choosing." I knew it would slightly reassure me when the storm was huffing and puffing trying to blow our little dream house down.
"Sure," he permissed.
"Thanks."
"Okay, what do you want to hear René?" Jordan half yelled over the wind. We were now tucked carefully inside our tent, braving the storm from the inside.
"Do you know the words to Wind Beneath My Wings?" I'd had the urge to sing that since I'd told him about Jason the other day. As much as I hated being stranded, being with Jordan made it much more bareable.
"Yeah. I'll start on three okay?"
"Kay." I nodded and huddled closer to him, so I could hear him sing. He tested his voice out, found the starting note and counted to three. I listened to him sing it, his angelic voice somehow overpowered the boisterous sounds of the wretched storm just outside. I fell into a catatonic state, lost in his voice. I always thought that if I met Taylor Hanson, I'd get lost in his eyes, but I was wrong. His eyes weren't the passageway to his heart, like most everyone else's were, his voice was. The sweet melody enveloped my ears and it was almost as if his voice was channeling how I pictured Jason to be: flawed, but in a perfect way. I felt warm suddenly, like a sunray was beaming out of the sky directly onto my head. As I was enjoying the feeling, Jordan finished the song and came out of this euphoria-like state he went into when he began singing. Unfortunately, he returned to the ugly sight of our shaking tent, as did I. We held onto each other and watched as the tent was torn off the branches, leaving us exposed to the elements. With no shelter, we were forced to flee toward the middle of the island. I managed to grab his arm during the mix up and we scattered. A lightning bolt hit very closely to us, striking a tree in the near distance. The lightning had been close enough that my hairs on my neck stood on end. The tree, we didn't notice, had begun to fall. It crashed into another tree, knocking it down as well. Then we realized we weren't safe anywhere. I was wet, cold and terrified. Jordan and I cried, prayed and did whatever else we felt was necessary to maintain our safety. Another tree was struck by the electric bolts from the sky, and it fell too close to where we were kneeling. I remember thinking Oh God, please spare us! and then everything went black.
I woke up disorientated and hungry. Slowly, I tried getting up, but something had a hold of my ankle and I panicked. I jerked myself forward, trying to untrap myself from my assailant. Then I heard it. A terrible pop that snapped and cracked. I screamed in pain and quickly forgot about my hunger. Never had I felt such immense physical anguish. It was like a thousand daggers were plunged into my ankle at the same time. The vicious throbs of pain shot up my right leg and up throughout my whole body and back again. I quickly became weak and could no longer hold myself up. I collapsed, face first, into the mud. I tried to look back and see what was pinning me to the floor of the island, but I just couldn't move without terrible bursts of pain ripping through my body. It hurt so much that I began to cry, and I quickly realized that crying wasn't helping, so I did the only other thing I could. I looked around for Jordan and when I didn't see him, I called for him. Well, I called his name and screamed help, so he'd come faster.
"JORDAN!!!!!! HELP!" Soon I saw him darting through the woods and toward me.
"I was trying to find something to get it off your ankle...." he slid in the mud. I observed I was in about an inch of mud myself.
"It's broken. When I woke up I freaked out and snapped it," I filled him in. I could blame no one but myself for this one. I definitely needed to work on my rationalizing skills.
"It was probably already broken from the tree on it."
"TREE? THERE'S A TREE ON IT?"
"I'm afraid so. But I know, if I could just find something to get under it, so it won't roll over the back of your foot and shatter your bone completely, I can get you free from it."
"But, I heard it pop and crack," I was determined to be right.
"You probably didn't help the situation, but I'm betting it was already fractured," he looked over it. "It's beginning to swell, you need to elevate it, so we've got to get you free." He searched for a little bit and returned to me with a fairly large branch. Jamming the stick into the mud, under the tree, and pushing down, he lifted the tree up and off of my ankle. The pain really hit me then, and I began to cry again.
"It hurts so bad," I blubbered.
"I know, I know." He carefully slid me across the mud and out from under the tree. Then he gently picked me up and made our way back to the campsite. Being this close to him, I realized just how red he and I both were. I remembered that about the third day, we were burnt, but we'd been putting aloe on since. It's the damn sun! It's brutal during the day, the u.v. rays are out in force despite if it feels hot or not, and now that there was no shelter......oh no......the shelter! As Jordan carried me out of the tree area, I got the first look at our campsite since the storm last night. Chaos didn't even begin to describe it. The lean-to was nowhere to be found, leaves were strewn on the beach area and even the campfire rocks had become scattered about. I didn't need to see anymore, so I closed my eyes and focused on making the pain go away. Poor Jordan. With my ankle messed up, he'd have to clean up camp himself.
"René, I'm finally done." We'd gone without shelter last night, and Jordan had recovered my backpack and diary, no problem. He'd rebuilt the lean-to, but didn't get a chance to put it up before we fell asleep. He'd cleaned up the camp, re-arranged the fire ring - also collecting new firewood for the fire - he'd even made a bed for me and doctored me up. I don't know how he'd managed to do all this without having food for at least a day and a half now. We had water, but no food still. Jordan looked exhausted, and I'm sure he was. My stomach growled at the thought of food.
"Okay, your turn to rest." I scooted myself off my bed of leaves, and demanded he sleep; at least take a nap.
"No, I really need to watch you, and make sure you're okay," he yawned. I looked over my ankle and noticed it had slowly stopped swelling.
"SLEEP!" I pointed to the cool leaves. Then I delicately moved my foot to elevate it on a log that Jordan found and leaned against the tree for me.
"All right, all right, but if anything is amiss, wake me up."
"Okay." I had no intention of waking him up, unless it was an absolute emergency. He quickly fell asleep and I began to pray again. God, even if I don't make it off this island alive, please allow Jordan to. I would have been good as dead without him anyway and he has so much to return to. Sure I have Lori, and mom and stuff, but he has his whole big family with so many kids and so many people love him God, so many....including me. God, just please, give me a sign if its going to work out, give me a sign if I'll see mom again. Please.......Amen. I began to drift off to sleep myself, when suddenly I heard a bird chirp. I'd become accustomed to all the the bird calls in the vicinity, but this was different. When I peaked out the side of the lean-to, I noticed a flaming red cardinal. A good ole' American bird. That was my sign. Right then, I knew that everything would be okay soon. I tried to go to sleep, but my foot hurt too much and I was so hungry! I decided to watch Jordan. He was so innocent and peaceful looking as he slept. It was as if, when he was asleep, all his worries withered away. He was like an angel, my guardian angel. I knew when he woke up, he'd get that determined look on his face, and at this rate, he wouldn't be relaxed until we were both safe at home. I started thinking about everything he'd done for me. He'd been such an enlightening figure in my life since he entered it. Even before I'd even met him, he'd been someone I looked up to. Now, he was right here in front of me, and I'd been taking him for advantage. I would have killed to have just one conversation with him so long ago and lately I've gotten the chance everyday. But not once have I actually told him how much I appreciated his company, or how I would have died without him. Wandering around in my thoughts, I heard him sigh. I looked over and noticed the complete serenity that had washed over him, this created the urge to kiss him. I don't know why, maybe I thought it would make up for what he's done for me, sort of. I mean, he WAS lying so conveniently on his back, and he.......he seemed so, well, so......perfect. I quietly lifted my leg, ignoring the objections from my ankle and placed it carefully on the floor. After that objective was mastered, I began scooting toward him licking my dry lips. I adjusted my body to where I was leaning right over him and pulled back. Should I be doing this? I asked myself, then I cleared my head of all thoughts and placed my lips ever so gently upon his own. I felt him move under me and it took me by surprise. I'd definitely thought he was asleep. I pulled back quickly, trying to move back into my original position. I was still situating my leg when Jordan actually woke up. He opened one eye and looked at me. A terrible downfall about being me is that I can't lie, I always give myself away and when I saw him, I began to giggle. He didn't even have to accuse me to know I was already lying.
"René, did you just kiss me?" he rubbed his eyes, sitting up.
"No," I looked away, laughing.
"René, are you lying to me?" He crossed his arms and tried not to smile.
"No," I avoided his eyes and studied the "room."
"Then how come you can't look me in the eyes?"
"I can."
"Then why don't you?"
"I don't want to," I now crossed my arms.
"Hmm...so what if I look into YOUR eyes? Will you be able to tell me that you're not lying?"
"Sure," I slipped. I'd wanted to say something else, but it was too late now.
"Okay." He got up and sat in front of me, trying to look into my eyes. I accidently glanced into his eyes and knew it was a mistake right away. I began to giggle uncontrollably. "So, you did do it." I was now laughing so hard couldn't speak. He waited until I'd calmed down, and then questioned me again. "So, what in this macrocosm compelled you to kiss me?" I knew he was trying to be smarter than me, so I started to cock my attitude. But.....I ended up falling back into my embarassed state.
"Well......" I felt my cheeks begin to flush, he'd caught me now; red cheeked and all.
"Well what."
"I was just thinking about everything you've done for me so far. Whether you know it or not, you helped me survive so much, for example, my boyfriend's death and my parents' break up. You've also helped me discover how to have fun again, and most of all, you've helped me find myself. I'd be lost without you Jordan. I mean, you were helping me before you even knew me; and since you've known me, you've helped me in so many different ways anyway. Stranded or not, you've intrigued me everyday since I heard wind of you and even though I said I'd stopped listening to Hanson music, I only said that because I get ragged on by people when I don't. It's like, if I don't get my daily dose of Hanson music, then I'm not myself. And since I've been deprived of my music, you've filled a larger gap than what was already in my heart. That's why I felt that you deserved something from me, that meant something to me. And you would not believe how much a kiss means to me. I shared many, but never actually meant anything, until Jason." I stopped, thinking about the way I would phrase what I wanted to say next, "You remind me so much of Jason, it's scary. It's almost like you're him, only reincarnated or something. I know that has to sound weird, but it's like God placed you at the bottom of the steps the day I was looking for a playmate. Your hair caught my initial attention, but then I realized how much you reminded me of Jason from the back. I cannot begin to explain what it's like having someone in your life thats exactly like someone you just lost, but it's a good and bad feeling." Tears burst forth onto the scene and I ignored them. "I mean, I want to like you, and I want to fall in love with you; I really just want to let myself go, but I it's like I can't." I clasped the locket in my hand, "I can feel Jason's love pulling me one way, and the feelings I have toward you, pulling me another. I'm so confused, I just.......don't know what to do." He embraced me and shushed me. I suddenly realized the kiss had been my excuse to tell him everything I'd ever wanted to say to him. "I just wanted you to know that I'm grateful for you Jordan. I'd be lost, or worse yet, without you." He stayed silent, for whatever reason, so I said what I'd been meaning to for a long time. "Thank you. Thank you so much."
"I.....I don't know what to say, René," he rocked me in his arms.
"I don't either. I'm sure I'll think of something," I attempted to lighten the mood. "How about.......I'm scared." My crying was slowly ceasing, especially since I was in the caress of Jordan.
"Okay, I can reply to that. I'm scared too. I'm scared that my family thinks my dad and I are dead, I'm scared that the U.S.A. may think I'm dead, I'm scared that we'll never get off this island, and most of all, I'm scared that one of these nights, I'm going to wake up, and you'll be gone," he looked down. My ceased crying slowed to sniffles and I looked at him, amused. He felt the same way afterall.
"So, I guess you kinda can relate to how I feel."
"Yeah, I want to let Tara's love go, especially because I know she isn't coming back to me, but I can't let myself. After three years without her, you'd think I'd be able to let go."
"Yep, thats how it is.......it's like in a dream, where you can't run fast enough or can't scream loud enough."
"Exactly," he agreed. I quickly removed the locket from my neck, feeling naked and almost reborn without it on. I placed it carefully into my pocket and looked over at Jordan.
"Well, I guess I should have done this a long time ago then; while you were awake at least." Without hesitation, I smiled again and pressed my lips against his.
The next night, Jordan and I were cuddled up by the fire, talking about our favorite Christmas's. It was still slightly light outside, but the sun's rays were at the point of color brilliance.
"Hold on, it's rainbow time," I interrupted his talking. I'd forgotten about this little trinket from my earlier years. In the happy times, my mom had taught me about rainbow time as a little girl. For some odd reason, I suddenly remembered it. Maybe I only remember it during periods of extreme happiness.
"What the hell is rainbow time?"
"It's when the clouds and sky change colors as the sun sets, they turn all the colors of the rainbow at one point or another." I squeezed Boingo, who I'd normally kept zipped in my backpack, tightly to me. Once the sun had set, Jordan finished his story.
"And then one year, we had this biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiig turkey, I'm talking fifteen or so pounds. We had some family over and," Jordan was talking and suddenly I heard something.
"Shhh....." I put my finger to my lips and listened again. Was it....could it be?
"What, what do you hear?"
"LISTEN!" It got dead quiet, all except for the sound of a plane! A PLANE WAS COMING!
"IS THAT A PLANE?" Jordan asked, eyes widening.
"I THINK SO!
"I'll be right back!" He frantically ran around, picking up wood and throwing it on the fire. I got more and more excited as the plane noise neared. God, please let them see the fire and know something's wrong! Closer and closer the noise got until finally, it flew over the island. Jordan began jumping and yelling and screaming at the top of his lungs! I did as well, minus the jumping. Never had I heard or seen such ruckus and commotion, other than a Hanson concert of course. We were saved, so we thought. Then we realized the plane wasn't turning, or circling or anything, IT JUST KEPT GOING! It scared me to death. Finally it seemed as if we were saved, and our one chance flew right into the horizon. I was in such shock, I couldn't even cry. Jordan turned around and began to solemnly walk towards me. I just stared straight ahead, not believing what just happened. Maybe the cardinal hadn't been a sign afterall! Could it have been a bad omen?? When finally coming to the realization we'd probably never get saved, we heard the plane again. It HAD seen us! Now they were returning to the island!
"Look!" Jordan pointed to the sky as the plane made its way toward us again. Strangely, the plane had a bright red bird painted on the underside of it. I hadn't noticed it before because I'd been in an excited stupor, acknowleging only that it was a plane. The bird was so bright, that I noticed it even in the near dark. The word "Cardinal" was written on it in white. Our nightmare was over and our prayers answered. I immediately called Jordan over to pick me up so I could wave to the plane. As he picked me up, I began kissing him a million times over on whatever my lips could reach, and rejoyced. Jordan whooped and hollered or whatever he was doing. I was too happy to care about anything. We must have looked crazy! He was dancing around in circles, yelling and screaming while I was in his arms, enduring what I could of his yelling and adding in my own. Soon after our celebration, the coast guard showed up and air lifted men down. They were to take each of us up into the helicopter hovering above us. I was taken first, backpack in hand, never thanking the man holding me enough times. After I got in, Jordan was soon lifted in and as dirty and rotten as we were, we were going home.
"MOM!" I squealed. It was the first time I'd seen her since the boat capsized.
"Oh my baby!" She ran to my bed and we embraced and cried. I was in a Florida hospital now, getting treated for dehydration, lack of food and my broken ankle. My ankle was now in a cast, and I was learning to walk with a "shoe" on. Mom had laughed at the sight of me, just bubbling with glee that her baby was okay. I was happy because of her and because I knew Jordan's family had already seen him again, which would make him happy. After we'd gotten out of the helicopter, we were both rushed to the hospital in the same ambulance. Jordan held my hand all the way there and he was put in the room next to me, being treated for his cuts, dehydration, and lack of food as well. I was crying like I'd never cried before, and lately I'd cried a lot. I even cried harder knowing I wouldn't have seen my mom again without Jordan there to help me through the crisis we endured. But together, we'd survived. The doctor had even said that without Jordan's quick thinking and him looking after me, I would have been as good as gone after couple days. He added that God had to have been keeping a close eye on both of us for everything that happened in our favor. After we settled down, mom told me that she and Jordan's dad had been saved by a deep sea fisherman, and that almost all the passengers were recovered now. Most of the boats had capsized or were battered, but they were only still missing a few people. Sadly the captain, who's father built the boat, went down with the ship out of respect, but it seemed as if it was a small price to pay for him not calling the coast guard. Mom said that no one reported the shipwreck until she and Jordan's dad were saved. Immediately after they informed the captain of that ship, he radioed it in. One passenger boat made it to Africa! The people from it were rescued and taken home. Then she surprised me by telling me Jordan and I had been on the island for twelve days. I couldn't recall all of them, but I've written down what I could remember in my diary. And of course, I'd finally gotten a well deserved, and definitely needed bath and was able to brush my teeth and hair. It felt nice to be clean again.
The next day, Jordan and I were released from the hospital and a newspaper was paying for both our families to stay at a hotel if we gave them our story first. We'd agreed. It was a warm bed and we knew they'd treat us like royalty. The press had been informed of our amazing story, and everybody wanted us already. We'd go down in history for our feat. I really didn't think it fair though, Jordan had already done that once. He said, and I quote, "Music fame is was nothing to this extent, but I got paid a lot more to sing." Of course, he'd said it with a big, adorable grin. After dinner we were scheduled to meet with that one paper, and then go to go to a press conference in the lobby. Jordan and I couldn't wait for dinner though, real food. The hospital had pumped food in tubes, to our stomachs because neither of us could keep anything down. Of course, before that, we'd lived off coconuts and fish. I was so sick of those two foods I swear I'd just up and leave the room if I heard their names again! I'd planned on avoiding even seeing them again if I could help it.
After a nice, hot, self-given bath, a two hour nap and a visit from Jordan, my accomplice and I made our way down to dinner alone. Our families awaited us in the restaurant already. When we stepped off the elevator, we could smell the food from there. Jordan and I looked at each other and laughed. It was going to be nice to have fully prepared food. We finally made it to the hotel's restaurant and saw our families chattering, waiting for our grand entrance. We locked arms and walked in feeling dignified because everyone clapped when we entered. Word of us had spread like wildfire, nationally, already. We sat down, looking forward to a good meal. Jordan and I talked quietly as we waited on the waiter. How ironic.
"Feels so refreshing after a bath, a nap and a little word from you," he smiled.
"Yes, much better than being stinky, nasty, dirty, half bathed in boiled ocean water, no brushing teeth, smelling like aloe and little pigs with sharp tusks and whatever else we endured that made us stink to high Heaven."
"Haha.....I'll never forget that spider either," he added. I just shuddered at the thought of it. "Know what?"
"What?" I unfolded my napkin and placed it on my lap.
"I'm still wondering what it would be like to kiss you. Ya know, really kiss you. Like, when we're clean and stuff."
"Is that an insult?" I asked, silently praying he was just wanting to kiss me again.
"No, I just wanted to know what it's like to kiss you when we both don't stink."
"So you're saying I stink?" I playfully faught.
"You know what I'm getting at," he got that tone like, You know what I mean, don't play dumb.
"Yeah, yeah.....you can find out later, I promise. I'm pretty sure that there's room in my life for a guy now." While were whispering, the waiter finally showed up and was ready to ask our meal choices. Jordan and I hadn't even glanced at the menus.
"Good waiter, what do you recommend?" Jordan asked.
"For dinner tonight the special is grilled tropical fish and a dessert of coconut cremé pie." Jordan and I looked at each other with the same, horrified, expression. We nodded our heads at each other, got up and left. Many confused people called to us, but we ignored them. Locking hands, he and I decided McDonald's would suit us just fine for dinner.
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