It was true what Jim said, this wasn't the end but the beginning. But the wars would end one day and Jim would come there then, to the island they would share. One day surely the wars would end, and Jim would come home, if only to lie broken in MacMurrough's arms, he would come to his island home. And MacMurrough would have it built for him, brick by brick, washed by the rain and the reckless sea. In the living stream they'd swim a season. For maybe it was true that no man is an island: but he believed that two very well might be.
"And you know," said Jim, exploring his fingers along Doyler's arm, along the scrapes and grazes of the elbow, their mesmeric tactility, "you know, things won't be like this then."
"Why wouldn't they?"
"Listen to me. When you'd touch me, I won't be jumping, I won't be startled, won't hardly show if I felt it even."
"What about it?"
"I'm just thinking that would be pleasant. To be reading, say, out of a book, and you to come up and touch me -- my neck, say, or my knee -- and I'd carry on reading, I might let a smile, no more, wouldn't lose my place on the page. It would be pleasant to come to that. We'd come so close, do you see, that I wouldn't be surprised out of myself every time you touched."
My name is Gabrielle and I am twenty-eight years old. I began to self-injure at age fifteen -- so nearly thirteen years -- minus a two year period. This website was made to let self-injurers know that they are not alone and to help their friends and family learn more about self-injury and how it affects their loved one.
