Pain

Chapter 6 - Confidant

Chapter 6
Confidant

With Nigel and Jen on the mend and Koby's confusing stance on our relationship, I went back to my old habits of spending a lot of my time in the cave that Jamie and I used to sneak away from the camp. Now that Jimmy and Karlo had returned and Jamie was so obviously gone, my heart ached. It had been three weeks, there was no longer any chance that I'd see that boy again.

For some reason, Candice started playing up around the second week that he'd been gone. She was acting as though she was completely heartbroken by the fact that he'd gone and not taken her with him. Funnily enough, I noticed she didn't get the sympathy she was after and instead, was awarded with a lot of dirty looks. With the amount of glares she'd been giving me, she was lucky what happened between Jen and I wasn't repeated between me and her.

I wasn't sure who decided that we should have some kind of memorial service for Jamie, but sure enough on the morning of the third week without him we were all gathered around out makeshift graveyard. I stared silently at the little gumleaf wreath that Bella and Jen had crafted, listening to the silence of the bush around us. He hadn't kept his promise. He was never going to come back to me.

As soon as I crawled into my tent that night, there was nothing I could do to stop myself from bursting into tears. I curled up beside the pillow Jamie used to sleep on and held it, his scent all but gone from the fabric. This continued on for the next few nights and while I was certain that a few of the tents around me would have heard me, it was Jen who came to console me.

"Esther, I can hear you crying from my tent," she whispered, crawling into my sleeping bag and holding me. "What is it?"

"I'm f-fine, r-really," I sobbed, failing to compose myself.

"You've been crying all week," she said. "You're hurting. Tell me why."

"It's Jamie," I admitted. "I love him and he's gone. I'm never going to see him again."

She hid her surprise well. All she did was hold me tighter, which somehow comforted me more. I'd really missed her. Perhaps she'd known all along.

"He might still be alive," she said after a while. "We're just presuming he's gone, but there's hope he's still out there somewhere. Don't give up."

"Aren't you going to call me out?" I asked, thinking back to our fight.

"You and Koby aren't together anymore," she reasoned. "You haven't been together for a long time and you're still keeping what you and Jamie have quietly. I respect that."

"You wouldn't if you knew how long it had been going on for," I said.

"Then enlighten me," she pressed. "You've been there for me throughout this entire thing and long before that, come to think of it. It's my turn to be there for you."

I adjusted myself so that I was sitting up, looking straight at her and took a breath.

"The night before Gordon died wasn't the first time we'd kissed," I admitted. "You were right when you called me out on that stupid spin the bottle game, I just didn't want to admit it. The truth is, the night that Koby and I had a yelling match on his block and he left was the end of our relationship in my eyes, engaged or not."

"Why did you agree to the engagement then?" she asked, looking confused.

"I'd been with him since year nine, Jen," I said. "He was all I'd ever known and whatever was happening with Jamie was so confusing that I tried to push it away so I agreed. I didn't really think that Koby would have taken no for an answer regardless of what I thought about it."