Page 49 of The Beach Holiday

THEN

Journal entry

Things were pretty okay before I got here weren’t they?

I’m not saying I’m going to go home or that I’m even considering leaving, I was just contemplating the time I was at home, and what drove me to come here.

I took hold of the idea and began to roll with it.

Soon it became my reality too and when we found the island, well then it was easy.

We just booked the flights and found our way here.

But life is very different here but there was no one at home who is missing me.

I had to get away from all the anger, all the fighting.

I am happy here; it just takes some getting used to, and I am still adjusting to their way of life.

But I can be honest here, can’t I? This is my journal; these are my words.

No one will read them but me. This thing that happened, it happened to me.

I was drunk on kava. I don’t remember consenting.

And now I feel as though my body is trying to tell me things, and if I don’t speak about them, I might go mad.

But I am scared to write the word because then that makes it real, and then I will have to admit it, and then I will have to face it and deal with it.

And that’s not easy here when life is so insular, and there are only chickens and coconuts to talk to.

There really is nowhere to escape. There is no discussion about life outside of the island and I am really quite desperate to talk to someone about things.

But it’s been several weeks. I just need to suck it up, right?

It will be like one of those TV reality shows where they get dropped off on a remote island for twelve weeks and have to do insane challenges.

I should just see it like that. Except for the thing that happened.

That guy, that wasn’t supposed to happen was it?

But I had drunk way too much that night and I wasn’t sure what I was doing, so I suppose I am partly to blame. Aren’t I?