Chapter Text
Jack
I was smearing mud on my face, preparing for the full choir attack on the pigs. I looked into the river I was using as a mirror and started roaring into it, seeing if I looked an ounce of scary to make myself look powerful.
However, I didn’t. I washed it all off.
As I tried redoing it, I saw Simon walking towards me through the tunnel that it’s end leads over here.
I tried to ignore him until he cracked a joke to grab my attention.
“You look like a brick.” He said.
“Are you supposed to be creeping around in secret?” I asked him.
“I like the peace.” He told me, with a smile.
“You might scare the littluns.”
“I’m not the one daubing his face with mud like someone in the Special Service.” Simon said, before sitting next to me.
“My father used to-” Simon cut me off.
“Is it different if you’re a hunter? He said “Is it fine to scare the littluns then?” Simon continued, jokingly.
I told him I’m not painting my face, I'm disguising it,
“I need to blend in, for the pig hunt.”
“You’re having a jolly nice-” I cut him off “If you don’t have something nice to say, go away.”
Simon’s smile dropped.
“All I’m saying… All I’m saying is what a jolly good time you’re having.” He told me with a soft smile returning back to his face.
I felt bad after telling him to go.
We both stared into the water, until I noticed he was playing with something in his hands. It looked like a rock.
“Where did you have that?” I asked him. He looked at me then back at it.
“It’s flint, I made it,” He said. “caveman style.”
“Stone against flint, it’s proved to be very useful cutting the vines.” He told me.
He cut a mango to split with me. I smiled at him.
“It’s not a jolly good time.” I said. It made my smile drop as I thought about home. “I’m just…taking it seriously.”
“ As am I”, he told me.
I began to tell Simon about the story about how when my father was 18, he adventured across Scotland with nothing but a friend and the clothes on their backs. It rained for ten days, and he didn’t even care about being wet.
“I’d care, I hate being damp.” Simon said. It made us both chuckle.
I finished my story with that when my father got back he learned more that school ever taught him, and it prepared him for the future.
Simon asked me if he thinks this is a test that will make us stronger. I assume he means from Jesus, or God.
“Of course not. A test is not positive however you behave in it.” I told him.
“ Oh! I got a Delta minus in Maths!” I said in a funny voice, making us both laugh.
“ A test needs to be passed. My father and his friend passed their test. We need to pass this one. Before we’re saved, that is.” I concluded.
Simon looked at me, like I said something that broke his heart.
“What? I know my father’s-”
“Your father is not coming for you, Jack. Whatever you say about Scotland, he’s not coming.”
That made me upset, almost queasy. “You don’t know anything about my father.”
“But I know mine,” He said to me, with a strain in his voice.
“and I have suspicions yours is just the same!”
He couldn’t look at me after that. He looked out into the river’s creek. I still looked at Simon.
He faced me again. “But their fathers are better than ours, and so I agree, you will be saved. You’re going to get off this island.”
I stopped him fast; “We all are.”
“...I know it. We just have to get by until they come,” Simon told me.
“This isn’t a test, we don’t need to prove anything. We don't need to be brave, we don’t need to be scared.”
“ I’m not scared.” I told him.
“ I don’t want to be tested, I don’t want any of this! I don’t want this to be a test, I just feel like it is.” Simon looked like he cared.
“ And I don’t get scared! I get…worried…” My eyes started to water. “It’s a better word.”
Simon looked down, but then back up at me. He started to put mud on my face to help me prepare for later. All I could do was smile.
“Shall I…Shall I try to do your face? I might have a better eye for it,” He said with a perfect smile. “As my eye isn’t attracted to the face being painted.”
It made me chuckle. “Yes. Why not.”
We turned toward each other and he started to paint my face with the riverbed’s mud.
We locked eyes, and he smiled. “My…The worried warrior” He said.
“Your worried warrior.” I responded.
He started to put mud near my lips.
“Simon, you should join my hunters.”
He stopped doing the mud on my face.
“Why is that?” He asked me.
“I’ve seen you before, you’re strong. You helped me during that…the fire. I could give you a spear and you’d fit just right in with the rest of us choirboys.” I said, jokingly.
“I don’t know if I could do that, hunt an animal.” He told me.
“ Well maybe you don’t have to kill it,” I told him. “Just scare it.”
He stared at me, then back in the water. “I dunno…something just feels wrong about it.”
“ Hm,” I said, then sat a little closer to him. “Maybe you could be a doctor?”
He looked up at me and asked me what I meant.
“You could help anyone if they get hurt. I know you’re good at that, you’ve helped me.”
“I can see that. You still have that shirt I gave you as a bandage…around your neck.”
I got pink-cheeked instantly out of embarrassment instantly. “It- It has my blood on it! I didn’t know you would want it back!” I told him, with a voice crack.
“ It’s okay, Jack, I was just trying to be funny.” He said with that pretty smile back on him. I looked at the water.
I knew I felt happy with Simon. Too happy. I knew this was not normal. Everytime I see Simon my heart gets a little bit bigger, and my mood instantly lightens. I see things that remind me of Simon everywhere, and it’s been like this for years.
This is how everyone has described love for years. But I cannot love a boy, it’s a sin.
Leviticus 18:22: States, "You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination", Romans 1:26-27 says that “Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."
I can’t love this boy, I can’t love any boy. I had always been perfect towards the church, and perfect towards God himself. I have read this bible every day for years. Will I let that go to waste on him? Or is there another way?
I looked at Simon and I asked him if God truly does forgive every sin. He looked at me and he said he believes so. He told me about a story he heard about a woman who was living in sin and her life changed completely under His’s love.
I cut him off because that was not what I meant.
Simon
Jack’s question confused me. I asked him to explain to me thoroughly what he meant.
“ I just…I was thinking,” He warned me about this part very specifically. “If two boys ...or girls maybe…had a godly relationship…would they still receive God’s grace?
I think I knew what Jack was trying to ask me. I tried to speak on my part carefully.
“If you truly love God, and believe in him, I think you would be okay. All sinners are treated equally, which means that they all can be saved equally as well. If a thief can go to heaven, I think a homosexual boy can too.”
Me and Jack locked eyes.
“Are you gonna…come on the pig hunt too?” He asked me.
“ Yes,” I said, smiling at him warmly. “I think I will.”
“That means I should do your Special Service disguise.” He joked with me. I told him I’d like that.
He held my chin and started to put mud on my cheeks. I wanted to ask him something else but I was too scared at the moment.
I could hear the waves moving from the river into the sea. We were both silent, it was peaceful. I could hear the crickets chirp, the leaves move through the breeze. I could finally relax on this stressful island, and from building the huts, and watching the littluns, and help Ralph with whatever thing he could make me do because I was too shy to say no.
I noticed that Jack wanted to be intricate about what he was doing because he wasn’t breaking his focus for anything. Not even for me moving a little closer.
I worked up the courage to ask him my question from earlier.
“Jack…” He finally broke his focus.
“Was that question, about marriage, about this subject too?”
He looked back to his work on my face.
“Hm.” I don’t think he wanted to answer that.
“I can answer your marriage question now, Jack.”
He froze. I could tell he was scared, he was shaking and wouldn’t even look at me. He still had his hand on my chin
and the other on my right cheek.
“If I had to marry anyone, I’d marry someone who had blonde hair, and had blue eyes,” Jack looked at me, all bravery lost from his eyes. He looked like he had no power.
“ And someone who was brave, and strong,” We finally met eyes during this conversation. “And can sing C#.” I told him, giving him a heartfelt smile.
He looked at me, tears in his eyes and down his cheek, and he told me that he loves me too. He grabbed me, hard, and hugged me.
He started apologizing for everything he ever thought he had done to hurt me. He said he was scared of the truth and that he will promise to not hurt me ever again. As much as I love him, I don’t know if I can believe him.
We stared at each other's eyes and he told me how pretty he thought I was. He, with his hands back on my face, leaned into a kiss and I joined him. It made my heart burst into a million ways I didn’t know possible.
It felt like the world paused just for us until he left abruptly. He said he forgot that we had to go on the pig hunt, which made us both laugh. We fixed each other's faces quickly and ran back to the shore through the tunnel. All I could do was laugh.