The Island

The next morning was terrible. I had been restless the whole night. I tossed and turned until eventually Kyle had moved closer to me and embraced me in a hug. I had fallen asleep only to be woken up again by the early morning sun.

It was difficult for the group to adapt to their now smaller size. Everyone had to pull twice the weight that they used to. Tiffany went into a deep silence and refused to come out of it. At night even from across the beach you could see her kneeling over her best friends’ grave and crying silently. Nobody dared to interrupt her when she was over there. Brian kept bossing people around and seemed harsher than he used to be. He would randomly kick the sand and scream incoherent words at the sky. Cole stopped making jokes. He stopped teasing people, even lightly teasing people. Nobody cared anymore.

Alec was the worst person to be around. He had been friends with Brittany and had been planning to ask her out. Their bond was almost as deep as Tiffany’s bond with her. Sometimes if he was really mad he would take it out on us other teens. Not even Brian could control him anymore.

One day, before Cole had gotten serious, he had been trying to joke with Alec about something. He said something harmless while he was cooking a fox and Alec snapped. He beat Cole almost to unconsciousness. Cole didn’t stand a chance. Though he was strong, Alec was on the wrestling team and was much stronger. I had to treat multiple cuts on Cole's face and arms. After that happened Cole stopped joking and became serious all the time.

Cole wasn’t the only person who Alec had attacked after the funeral. He had gone after me for not helping Brittany sooner. He backed me up against a tree and screamed at me in rage “It’s your fault! You didn’t help her! You could have saved her!” I started sobbing and pleaded my case but Alec wouldn’t listen. He slapped me so hard in the face that I saw dots of colored light and fell to the ground. I had laid there on the ground curled in a ball with my own guilt for a long time before I recovered and went to clean shirts again. The only reason Alec hadn’t beaten me more was because Kyle and Derek had pulled him back.

After that incident Kyle kept a closer eye on me than ever before. If I went anywhere Kyle was right there within minutes as well. Carrie seemed to grow more distant from the others than she had been before. Her previous outgoing, social nature had disappeared slowly until it was gone completely. Derek seemed to have gone through the same thing. He didn’t walk with a skip in his step anymore. Instead his feet dragged along the sand.

Tim did nothing, literally nothing. He lay on a spare shirt in the sand and rarely moved. Eventually he stopped eating and was hardly drinking. Losing Vanessa had put him into a deep, lifeless depression. There were no counselors or therapists, just him and his thoughts.
There was a certain schedule that kept everyone sane, and everyone kept to it. For me it was wake up, wash shirts, check on anyone who was hurt, boil water for them, let it cool, clean their wounds, clean the shirts, eat, and go to sleep again. Nobody strayed from their routine for fear of going insane without it.

Kyle was my rock. A solid, sturdy rock that I could lean on whenever I needed to. To me, he was the only one who seemed unphased by the losses of Brittany and Vanessa. Somehow he helped pull me through the week after losing Brittany and Vanessa.
Unfortunately, Tim wasn’t pulling through. He hadn’t eaten in four days and was too weak to sit up.

Every morning I helped him drink some water and watched him deteriorate slowly. He was withering away. You could see all of his bones clearly and his skin looked pasty and dry. He never opened his eyes anymore, the only way you could tell he was alive was his breathing.

One day when I went to give him his water, his eyes fluttered open slightly and he whispered so quietly that I had to lean over him to hear “Nikki, let me die. Stop giving me water, just let me die. I want to die.” I was shocked and without answering him ran to Kyle and explained what had happened.

“Nikki, it’s no way to live. He’s in horrible pain and you know that. If it’s his final request and it was me, I’d do it.”

“But Kyle, he could still live!” I raised my voice “How can I justify letting him die when he still has a chance?” I was on the verge of tears now. His answer only confirmed what I had been dreading.

“Because it’s what he wants.” And with that he walked away. I walked back to Tim, tears flowing freely down my face.

“I’ll do it Tim.” He smiled for the first time ever at me but I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. “Can I ask you a couple questions first though?”

“Sure.” He replied weakly.

“Did you love Vanessa, truly?”

“I loved her more deeply than you will ever know.” That didn’t surprise me that much. I only had one other question.

“Tim, why won’t you try to survive?” His answer floored me and left my head spinning.

“Because I don’t want to survive, I want to live.” And then he closed his eyes. The next morning I didn’t give him water. And the morning after that his heart stopped. None of the others knew about Tim’s final wish and so I started to dig the grave myself. An hour late Carrie walked up to me and asked me what I was doing. I explained and she called everyone over. She began to speak when everyone had gathered

“Everyone, look at Tim,” she pointed to his shell of a body “This is what we will become if we don’t get it together! He asked Nikki to stop keeping him alive, he wanted to die. I wonder when the last time he thought about his family was. He probably didn’t think about his family when he said he wanted to die. We are truly pathetic right now. Yes three of us have died, but we can’t let ourselves loose the will to survive. Tim said he didn’t want to survive, he wanted to live. What he didn’t consider is that in order to live, you must first survive.” She paused to let her powerful words sink in.

It was true, and I could tell that all the others were thinking the same thing. Carrie had always been good at public speaking, especially motivational speaking. “Are we going to let ourselves shrivel up and blow away like dead leaves? I know I’m not.” She then smiled at me and I could tell that her old personality had returned. Everyone helped dig Tim’s grave, right next to Vanessa, and afterwards everyone gathered around a big bonfire and shared stories.

We all went in a circle and one by one told funny stories. Carrie told us about her crazy ex-boyfriend from a different school, Alec told us about when he gave his pet Great Dane a bath when he was little, and Cole told lots of funny jokes and did stand-up comedy.

Then we played truth or dare and oh was it fun. Alec dared Brian to lift both Carrie and Tiffany, which was hilarious. Carrie ended up tipping over Brian and all three of them fell on the sand laughing. Derek dared me to put all the guys in order from cutest down. Kyle won the spot of cutest of course, and then came Derek, Alec, Brian, and finally Devin. I knew that Devin wasn’t happy about that at all and for revenge he gave me a truth and asked me why I liked Kyle. So there it was, my personal life ripped open for everyone to see. Cole winked at me and I decided that instead of getting really mad, I’d embrace it. So I gushed to everyone about his amber eyes and his warm hugs and how he makes me feel like the most special girl in the world. Brittany would have been proud. Devin on the other hand looked ready to kill. He stormed away from the bonfire and into the woods. I looked at Kyle and he nodded so I went into the woods after Devin. I hadn’t meant to make him so mad, just bug him a little. When I found him he was leaning on a tree with his arm above his head. Ugh, I don’t want to do this. He’ll be fine; I don’t need to talk to him… I thought. But I felt like I should say something anyway. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

“Devin, are you okay? I’m sorry about what happened back there.” I slowly approached him when he lashed out.

“Don’t lie you stupid piece of shit! You’re not sorry, you never have been and you never will be!” WHAP! He smacked me clear across the face and made me see stars. I had no idea how strong he was. “I thought you were the greatest girl in the world but you never even gave me a chance!”

Another slap, this one sent me to the ground. “Well I’m through; I’m done with dealing with you! You are a despicable person and I feel bad for Kyle being suckered into your sick ways!” and then he started beating me like a drum. Hitting, kicking, punching, and even pulling my hair. Anything he could do to hurt me. Three years of pent up resentment, passion, and rage all pouring out at once, and all onto me. I began to scream, I thought he might kill me. He was caught up in his rage, blinded by it, and he didn’t know when to stop. The last thing I saw was Devin’s face, twisted with fury as he threw one last punch. Then everything went black.