Chapter 3
It was hard for Leia to keep up a conversation when she knew that something traumatic was about to happen to him. He would leave and leave her here alone, and she had to decide whether she would do anything about it. His wasn’t a world she wanted to go back to. In her experience, it was a world filled with pain, loneliness, anger, and injustice. All aspects of life that she had done her best to leave permanently behind.
But he was right in saying that she was hiding. She was hiding here when she’d first arrived. The island had welcomed her when they found out she had medical skills, and she’d spent a lot of time helping people manage various conditions and minor ailments. They looked at her with benevolence and generally let her live in peace. But it was definitely a hiding of sorts, and now, all these years later, she had to admit that fear prevented her from moving forward.
It was a beautiful place to live but a very simple existence, though maybe that was okay too. Maybe she could go forward without having to do anything further with her education and her training. She didn’t want to retrain, and she highly doubted the last several years would be counted as additional medical experience for her. But it certainly had helped her get her head together.
She just didn’t know what to think about Bullard and then his comment about somebody in the bushes. She put away the coffee cups, put on her sandals, and changed direction, coming up to where Bullard had said someone had been watching. She also understood his confusion because he’d had so many nightmares, even wide awake, where he couldn’t see that the monsters were in his dreams. They were his history, and it had taken her a lot of time and effort to calm him down and for him to see the difference.
Even now she wasn’t sure if she believed him about being watched. But, as she wandered around to the far side where such a person would have been, she frowned at the sight of footprints in the sand. Clearly they had stood here for a while, shuffling their feet, churning up the sand as they watched Bullard. And that just creeped her out and changed the atmosphere entirely. Something about the peacefulness of the island was changing. And maybe not for the better.
“Anybody there?” Bullard called out to her.
Startled, she peered through the bushes at him. “No,” she said. “I found footprints though, so somebody was here.”
“I saw them then,” he said, satisfied.
She just smiled. Sitting off to the side, he was still pale and too lean for a man of his size and stature. But now he was gaining weight every day and beginning to use his wasting muscles. She was amazed at what a vibrant man he was and didn’t dare envision what he must have been like in his prime. Truly charismatic and larger-than-life in every way. She stepped down toward the pool. “Are you still doing okay over there?”
“Better than I expected actually,” he said, and he gestured to the surroundings. “This is amazing, and I can feel myself getting stronger, as I soak it all in.”
She nodded. “Agreed, but I don’t want you to overdo it.”
“I will overdo it,” he said on a chuckle. “Just because I can.”
Then she watched his countenance change completely, like a dark cloud blocking the sunlight. “How much of an issue is the person who was over there?”
“Normally I would say not much,” she said. “Some of the islanders are curious about you, or maybe they’re just trying to see how you are doing. And I wasn’t kidding about the women.”
“Maybe,” he said. “Or maybe it’s something else entirely.”
She walked over to the water’s edge, then hopped across several of the rocks, navigating her way across the water toward where he sat. Wearing one of the long flowing dresses she preferred on the island, she held her skirts up, until she finally made it across and landed nearby. “Do you think somebody’s after you?” she asked, looking directly at him.
“I think it’s a possibility,” he said. “How could it not be, given what you know?”
“It’s not what I know,” she said quietly, “as much as what I’ve heard.” She sat down beside him. “I don’t know for sure that you are in danger.”
“But you’re thinking that we are,” he said.
“We? No,” she said, shaking her head at the thought. “You.”
“Sweetie,” he said. “You’re the one who’s kept me safe, and that means you’re in danger too.” She stared at him in shock. “Had you not considered that?”
“No, of course not.” Yet, after she thought about it for a moment, she shrugged. “And it doesn’t matter in the end, because I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
“Exactly,” he said, “that’s because of who you are.”
She looked at him, then smiled. “I’m just me.”
“Yep. An angel in disguise,” he said, returning her smile.
She rolled her eyes at that, then noticed the sun beating down on his shoulders, already turning pinkish. “You need to move into the shade at least or back to bed. You must be worn out by now.”
“Yeah, I am, and back to bed is what I need to do,” he said, “but it’s hard to leave this place. It’s so amazing out here, so beautiful and serene that I just want to stay out here.”
“You can come back later on tonight or tomorrow morning,” she said.
“I hope so,” he said, and, with her assistance, he got to his feet and grabbed his crutches. Slowly they walked back to the hut that he called his own. It wasn’t much more than a rough platform, a simple padding for a bed, and some netting above. He stood there for a long moment, looking at her. “I don’t know how I came to be here really,” he said, “but I am delighted that you found me.”
“I am too.” She smiled.
“Did I ever say, Thank you?”
“Hmm, I don’t know that you did,” she said, “but that isn’t necessary.”
“Maybe not,” he replied, “but it does feel like I need to acknowledge the fact that you kept me alive all this time, when a lot of other people would have turned me over to somebody else or wouldn’t have gotten involved at all.”
“You’re just lucky that I had the training to fix you up.”
“That’s another thing,” he said. “You have advanced medical training, don’t you?”
“I do,” she said.
“And yet you’re out here,” he said, the unspoken question lingering in the air.
“That world is over for me.”
“Does it have to be?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t say that it has to be,” she said, “but it’s that way because I choose it to be so.” And, with that, it was clear she wouldn’t say any more.
With a nod, he said, “Okay. You’re entitled to your secrets, but, anytime you want to share, I’m happy to listen.”
She looked up at him. “Maybe I’ll share more of mine when you discover yours and get them out in the open.”
“I wonder if that will ever happen?” he said. “Sometimes it feels like my brain will never work right and won’t let me put all these random pieces together.”