Chapter eight
As Kate and Eko traveled through the jungle they had realized that Jack's trail had ran cold about an hour ago and they were just traveling East in hopes of picking it up again. They had been traveling non-stop for more than a day and Eko had finally had enough. After almost the entire time of them rarely speaking a word to each other like Eko promised. "Okay, we are stopping here for tonight." Kate shook her head. 'Maybe you are but I am not. We still have not found Jack yet." "His trail went cold over an hour ago and now we are just traveling in hopes that we will find him. We need to take a rest. We are no good if we are tired and need to be alert in case we come in a confrontation with the others. We are so tired that even if we do pick up Jack's trail again we are likely to oversee it because we are not alert." Kate finally gave up fighting Eko again realizing once again she was not going to win an argument with Eko and he did have a point. Her and Eko decided to set up tents they brought and set up a campfire with the matches they had. As they sat around the campfire poking sticks at it watching the fire grow, the light on the fire reflected on their faces. Eko was sitting on a large rock and Kate found a tree stump to sit on. They were silent for a while until Eko once again broke the silence. "So you must really care about Jack" Eko said looking Kate in the eyes as if he was a human lie detector waiting for her to try and tell him anything different. Kate knowing this avoided giving a straight answer and instead spun the answer. "Of course I care about Jack. We all do and everyone needs him. He's our doctor." Kate feeling as if she successfully avoided telling her true feelings smiled. Eko smiled too knowing what she had done. "That's not what I meant. Since I have arrived on this side of the island with you guys I have noticed how you act with others and how you act with Jack. And it is not because he is the only other doctor on the island. But because you seem shy about your feelings I will drop it." There was more defining silence and then Kate interrupted it. 'You don't even know me. You have been on this island for what, a couple of weeks? We have spent like in total together three minutes of time talking with each other including this trek and you think you know where my heart lies." "I know a lot more about people and their feelings than you think. I pick up on people and their ways quickly. I have needed to all my life. It's how I have survived. I try to know everything about a person as soon as I can by just watching them. I see your feelings for Jack. I see your fear. I see the fear you have of loosing him. And not because he is the doctor or that you have built a friendship with him on the island. That is how you were when Sawyer returned. This is something completely different."
Kate's eyes welled up in tears. "Maybe I do care for him but I don't see how that's any of your business" Kate cried. "You are right. It is none of my business. You always seem to be on guard about your feelings though. It is a terrible way to live believed me." Eko said this as if he was thinking about his own experiences of love, loss, and not being able to share your feelings. This made Kate strangely comfortable and she opened up for the first time to anyone before or after the crash "What has stopped you from sharing your feelings with him?" Eko asked. "I have a very dark past. One I don't think Jack will understand or except. I know Jack is a good guy. He is a forgiving guy. He has shown me that time and time again but I am still afraid to tell him the entire truth about me. Jack and I are similar but different you know? Not in a bad way just in a different way. We have similar backgrounds but some how our paths became lost when unplanned events led us to different paths in life. I also cannot open myself up to the though of opening myself up and then losing him. When I am with him I am vulnerable. I am not Kate the one who taught her to survive and keep her guard up. I have lived that way for so long to survive I don't remember how it is to have all these feelings and how to handle them. That scares the hell out of me. I am not in control of my emotions and in the past that is how I have become hurt and I don't want that to happen with Jack and I. I would rather us continue things how they are rather than cause myself potential pain." With that she stopped talking. Realizing how much of a mess she must have looked like and how she revealed too much of herself that she did not intend to she became silent. "Jack is a good man and you should not feel that you are not good enough for him or for anyone else for that matter. Did you possibly think that Jack too might have bones in his closet he does not want to reveal yet that would paint him less than perfect? I see something in the two of you that is undeniable. Would it be more painful to hide your true feelings or to tell your true feelings and not have it work? I think the first one I mentioned is much harder. Life is too short not to go for it. That may sound trite but it is true. I am going to my tent to sleep now. Maybe you should sleep on what I said." Kate nodded as she set up her tent to sleep in.