LIFE FELT DIFFERENT THERE.
It had become her favourite place in the whole world, long before she'd had the chance to set foot on the comfortable soil, smell the purifying air and experiment the colors in their true warmth.
It had taken her three decades to come, and less than three weeks to come back. This thought made her sad.
And she cried. She cried for Mrs. Sloan's death. Then she cried for leaving her job at the radio station, for leaving David, for not feeling capable of assuming any of that. In short, for all that had led her to this island in the first place. The one dream her depression had not been able to devastate, yet.
She cried the whole night long. She cried in the taxi and she cried in the wonderful Pink Roses Hotel bedroom. And, amazingly enough, Jesse stayed with her, so that, at least, she wouldn't feel too alone in her pain.
About six hours later, moments before daybreak, the sobbing began to subside. Of course, by then, she'd put Jesse in the picture. He was now informed of every petty detail regarding her love life, her professional life, even the frustrating relationship with her two sisters. All you wouldn't want someone to know in order to not endow them with the power to hurt you badly in a potential future - all that was now known by him.
"I'd like to apologize," she said, throwing her one hundred and fifty-fourth tissue into the wastebasket.
"You don't have to," Jesse's voice was a little husky, like hers, after a sleepless night.
"It's for being amazed that you've endured these long hours of grief with me. I was comparing you with someone whom I once considered morally obliged to actually do it and didn't."
"David?"
"Yes. And that's unfair because you have your own scale of values, which shouldn't be compared to anyone else's."
Then she looked at him like she'd been spinning and had just ended up bumping into the wall.
"Oh, please, just don't pay attention to anything I say. I'm not thinking clearly at the moment."
"I understand how you must feel right now. You've confided in me when you still don't know if I can be so trusted, which makes you scared. But you mustn't be. I think you are a very lucid person, and that's what I like most about you."
For about five seconds, nothing else mattered. All she could think of were the words I like you dancing in her head. They hadn't even been pronounced that way or in the context she was now imagining, but they'd had the magic to allow her to detach herself momentarily from memories and thoughts that hurt, and that was enough to make the words valuable.