Second Series: The Island Series: My Journey Alone on a Spanish Island, Heartbrake, Mystery, Survival in Paradise
Post 1
The Island
I ended up on an island, originally planned for a short stay in the sun, but I stayed for many years. There were trials and tribulations, personal relationships in a life that quietly changed me. This is the story I had never planned to tell.
POST 1: WHEN LOVE FELT PERFECT
“When Love Felt Perfect in England, before Everything Changed”
It all began in England, Manchester, to be exact.
I was there on a visitor’s visa, living with my boyfriend while he studied. We were young and wildly in love. The kind of love you don’t know exists until you’re inside it so deep, consuming, effortless.
He was Italian by descent and impossibly handsome: short black curls, bronze colored skin, almond-shaped dark brown eyes born with natural black eyeliner and black mascara. I mean…COME…ON…we women have to pay for that and his was built in from birth, not fair. He would roll out of bed with perfect eyeliner and mascara while I look like I had a fight with a raccoon. He had a perfect set of balanced lips and a smile that stopped people mid-sentence. My God, THE most perfect teeth, he’d never had a cavity in his life, they were unusually strong and white, each one in its perfect position. I remember going to the dentist with him for a cleaning and the dentist had to go get half of the office to come and look at his astonashing mouth, we laughed! All jokes aside, I’ve never seen teeth like that ever again on anyone, not even in the movies. I asked him if that was the usual reaction from a new dentist and he said shyly, everytime. I tell them that all my siblings are the same and I give all the credit to my mother who breastfed all of us until we were nearly four years old. His was all natural, if anyone on the big screen has perfect teeth, you can usually see there’s been work done and there’s a big difference. He had a strong, very straight nose, square jaw, prominent cheekbones. Don’t worry, he’s human, I did find a wee flaw, thank the goodness or I think I would have lost my mind even more. I guess he was maybe five foot eight…but honestly, who’s counting when everything else is near flawless. Solid and athletic. He loved to run. His legs were like tree stumps, I used to joke. Strong, grounded.
Apart from his appearance, he was a kind nature, quiet mannered, elegant but very masculine at the same time. Very respectful. He dressed in a very sophisticated way, clean from head to toe. Beautiful shoes, well I guess that’s expected from Italian nature. But he was somehow, humble, almost shy. Reserved, laid back.
We liked to observe people. We would go out for a cup of tea, always taking a window table and we’d watch people go by but we weren’t judging them, we watched as if learning from them. We’d talk about styles of clothing, who was buying what and that kind of thing.
I was a weight room instructor and we both loved the gym so we worked out together, swam long laps, pushed each other. I was at the peak of my life, extrememly fit, disciplined, energized. A 23-inch waist, toned from head to toe, I lifted weights every day, aerobics three times a week. We worked out for hours everyday except Sundays. Sundays were for plays, movies, long lunches, and drinks. We also loved food, a lot, really good quality food, no fast food here. There was a small pub across from our appartment, well…I should say our flat, as they say in England. We loved it there.
We went out for beautiful dinners. He loved to take me dancing. Sometimes we stayed in, shared drinks, talked for hours, or played games on his desktop computer. And sometimes we did nothing at all, stayed in, enjoyed making dinners from scratch and just sat on the sofa staring at each other, talking, perfectly content in each other’s arms. He also like shopping for clothes, I couldn’t believe it! He had great taste, kind of expensive taste if you ask me, but I wasn’t complaining, that’s for sure!
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Pause now if you’re about to hurl!
No matter what we were doing, we were inseparable. The kind of love where you can’t breathe when the other person isn’t near. Where you anticipate each other’s thoughts, movements, moods. We were always touching, holding each other was natural. I thought my heart would explode in my chest just sitting beside him watching tv! We never tired of each other’s voice, scent, presence. Being together felt weirdly ancient, like we’d known each other for lifetimes. With what I know now, that’s a definate but I didn’t know what was happening then, just that it was off the charts!
People noticed us all the time. They even stared when we walked down the street carrying groceries. It was uncanny. Almost embarrassing.
Because when is it ever this good?
And we all know the answer to that.
Something this perfect never lasts. I had to leave England because my visa ran out. So, we booked a ten-day holiday to a sunny island in Spain. Back then, I could have renewed my visa if I left the country for even just twenty-four hours, I don’t know what the rules are today, but instead, “he” decided that we were taking a holiday.
The night before we were due to leave, everything changed. He suddenly got irate, something I had never seen before? He was crying in the spare room. I walked in and asked what was wrong.
We had a second small bedroom with a sun-tanning machine that came with the furnished flat. In a burst of anger, he punched the top of it, and his hand went into the machine. Luckily, he didn’t hurt himself too badly; the machine however…wasn’t so lucky. I’m sure that must have eventually turned into an expensive outbirst.
Then he told me. He was engaged. Back home in his country, he’d been engaged for two years. Then he dropped a small photo on the floor. It was a photo of his engagement party, just before he started to travel for his studies. He picked it up and handed it to me, I took it and looked at it. There was no way out of it he explained. The families were close for many generations back. Apparently, he had been racking his brain for a while now, trying to figure out a way out of his engagement and holding all of this heartbrake inside.
I felt my heart stop in my chest. I couldn’t breathe.
I dropped the photo and he jumped up to catch me as I think I swayed a bit as if to lose my footing. He threw his arms around me, holding me so tight. I just stood there, my arms still straight down by my sides, there wasn’t time for me to pick them up to gesture to hug him back because he came at me so fast! He was sobbing so hard! He wasn’t faking it. Every word was raw: “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I wanted to tell you but couldn’t. Every time I looked at you, you were so happy… so in love… so am I.”
He just kept apologizing and crying so hard while I slowly felt myself go numb.
That night, we held each other and cried ourselves to sleep. I couldn’t be mad at him because I could feel his heart break into pieces. We shared that feeling when you hug someone after they’ve just lost a parent or gone through a terrible huge loss, where the area of their heart feels so empty and weak. I felt every inch of the same pain, almost too unbearable. I should have been furious with him but he didn’t plan this, our relationship happened like lightning, at lightning speed with a force of the same caliber! Even if we didn’t have such nice things or place to stay, there was still a strong magnetic force between us that was undeniable! We were in our own world, our own bubble and it burst!
“The plane landed, and with the island beneath us, nothing would ever feel the same again.”
