I S L A

I open my eyes slowly, making a light moaning sound as I adjust to consciousness. I turn over, my eyes blinking, to find Jason staring at me. 

"Good morning," he says.

"Morning." I smile with a yawn, he still continues to stare. "What?" I say.

"I was just thinking," he whispers. "About that day at the canal."

I blink to myself again, rubbing my hair. "The day at the canal. . ."

"Yeah, when you jumped in."

I laugh out. "I must have been under some kind of influence."

He reads my eyes. "You pulled me in after you. Remember that?"

I smile. "Yep. You weren't too happy about it."

He stares at me, and the amusement falls from my face. "No, I wasn't."

I pat his shoulder. "I'm going to go shower."

"Okay."

I throw the covers off me, arising from the bed that we shared together in another life. Being back inside this bedroom is surreal, it looks exactly the same, except that all my belongings are packed up in boxes in the attic. It looks bare now, there's just a pair of drawers and a few of Jason's things scattered around, but it definitely lacks a woman's touch.

I frown at that.

After I'm gone, again, will this just be it? Is there no more hope for him? Is he truly that in love with Lily, with me, that his bedroom will remain this lonely until the day he dies?

I hope not. He still has so much to offer someone. 

He still has so much to offer me.

The voices return again, just as I enter the bathroom. I was beginning to think Rosie was right, that maybe it was just a side-effect, maybe they had finally left me. But here they are, once again warning me that in three days time my life will be over.

I don't know how it will happen, I don't know where it will happen, but something the groundskeeper said sticks to me. 

You're going to take your own life. 

I would never even consider doing such a thing. But, do I really have a choice?

The more I think about it, the more I want it to be my own terms, rather than spending every moment of that day in fear. I just don't know if I can be brave enough. Jason once showed that bravery. He once dived across a street to push me out of the way of a car, he once saved my life, with no thought to himself. 

That kind of bravery is more powerful than anything: because it's selflessness. Yet I'm not giving my life for anyone else, I'm not taking the place of someone I love, I'm just righting a wrong. There is no selflessness in suicide, there is no pride, no heroism. 

There is nothing.

I fall against the wall of the bathroom, crashing to my knees with an undignified cry. There was a time when I thought Jason and I would have forever, that our love could see us through anything and everything.

And even when destiny, fate and everything else managed to prove it; I'm still at a cross roads. I'm still unclear of the greater picture, the greater design. 

I just know that what I feel for him is real. 

And it is strong.

It is strong enough.

It has to be.