I never really thought about chance encounters, I'm sure I've had plenty that I never considered to be much of anything. Everything changed when flight 815 crashed, then again if everything hadn't changed after a plane crash I might be a little worried about life before.
I'd been running around on autopilot, moving wreckage off a man's severed leg, helping a pregnant woman, giving CPR and trying to make sense of the carnage I saw around me. Who know how doing all that had made my own small injury worse but I found my bag, the vodka from the plane and a sewing kit and tried to find a quiet place in the jungle to assess the damage. It wasn't until I got my shirt off and attempted to take a look at the gash in my back that I realized there was no way I could fix it myself. Exhaustion was starting to take over and the thought of going back out to the disaster area that was the beach to find someone to help me just made me more tired.
Then she walked through the trees rubbing her wrists and I asked her if she could sew. After Kate's initial reaction to the idea of sewing up a large wound on my back she went to work. I remember the conversation with clarity, she asked me why I didn't seem scared and I told her about my take on fear, the counting.
How did that change my life? I guess you could say the first real bond I made on this god forsaken Island was with Kate and ever since then no matter what happened or what I found out about her, I haven't been able to break it. I tried for a while because of fear and anger (and maybe a little bit of jealousy) but it never seemed to go away.
I think Kate managed to sew some of herself into me that day.
