The pain of loving you

Early in the morning, on the quiet island, near the Palawan, the residents were busy making their houses stood firmly on the ground. There was news circulating around that heavy rains will pour down that night, so they have to be ready, just in case. One of the residents was the fisherman named Luis Martinez, a fifty-eight year man, with strong and muscular built. He was a friend of the only doctor in the island - doctor Joshua Morales. Both men likes to chat in the morning before the doctor went to his clinic which was located just two houses from his residence.

"Good morning, doc!" greeted the fisherman when he saw the doctor passing by his house which was situated beside the clinic.

"Good morning Luis! How are you? Looks like you are busy with fortifying your house in anticipation of the coming storm."

"Well, doc, it is better to get ready than to be caught unaware of the coming deluge. How about you, doc, have you made any preparations? Hmm...I forgot your house was made of strong materials and could withstand even the sturdiest of wind and storm." he asked the physician. The fisherman and all the residents of the island knew that the doctor's house was the biggest in the island and it was made of strong materials that could not easily be destroyed by rain or any natural disaster.

"Well, I'm also prepared for everything, Luis! You can't know what's gonna happen, really! Sometimes it will surprise you and does not know what hits you..." the doctor replied, then chuckled to his friend. Both were engaged in happy conversation when the doctor's daughter, Katerina Morales, joined them. Like her father, she also worked at the clinic as her assistant.

"Good morning sir Luis! Looks like you are getting ready for the coming storm tonight! But I do hope it will not bring too much havoc to the island. The last time it rained, the island suffered a lot a damage, good thing that the barangay officials were prepared to help the people in need."

Katerina Morales or Kate to the islanders who knew her and her father, was nineteen years old, with light brown skin, dark brown eyes and hair, and a well shaped-figure. She inherited her beauty from her father who was a handsome man even though he had aged already. Just like her father, she was also kind and humble and most of the men at the island were attracted not only to her beauty but to her good character as well.

"Well, good morning Kate! It's such a nice thing to see a beauty early in the morning, doc! If only I have a son, then I would certainly encourage him to marry your daughter, ha!ha!ha!" remarked the fisherman, who regarded the young woman as his daughter too.

Both the doctor and his daughter laughed at the fisherman's comment but they stopped upon realizing that they had to go to the clinic to attend to the people who were already lining up for the doctor's help.

"Luis, my daughter and I had to go now, okay? Just continue what you are doing, see you around!" the doctor then left his friend along with his daughter.

True to what he had expected, many people have already been outside of the clinic waiting for the doctor's arrival. When they saw him with his daughter, they greeted him with a smile. Doc Joshua, as he was fondly called by the residents, immediately opened the clinic to accommodate the people from outside. Most of them have been his clients ever since he came to the island and became his friends. Since most of the residents on the island lives in poor condition, the doctor receives whatever they could give him in exchange of his service. For him, money was not much of an importance but the will to serve them carried more weight.

"Good morning doc Joshua!" a young mother of twenty-three greeted the doctor.

"Good morning, Adela? Is your son still has fever?" he asked, while smiling at her.

"It's not him, this time, doc, it's my younger child, who has a fever now. She's here with me right now." she remarked. Her child was sitting on the chair and was wrapped in a blanket, quietly listening to the conversation between her mother and the doctor. The doctor the noticed the young boy and smiled at him. The shy boy only nodded his head to the welcoming gesture of the physician.

"Let me take a look at you," the doctor placed his hand on the young boy's forehead then said, addressing his mother, "He has a slight fever, hmm...there's nothing to worry about. Kate, dear, please give me a bottle of paracetamol for kids."

The young woman adhered to her father and handed him the medicine. "Give him one teaspoon of the syrup right after his meal. Come back to me tomorrow if he still has fever."

"Thank you, doc! Please take this basket of fruits that my husband harvested for you and your daughter!" the young mother handed the doctor a basket full of freshly harvested fruits that were native to the island.

"Thank you!" Joshua bowed his head in showing gratitude for the payment that he had received. Most of the time, his patients gave him fruits, vegetables or even live animals as gifts and payments for his service but he did not mind it at all. The clinic is opened everyday except on Sunday when he had to go the city to procure medicine and other stuff needed by the residents. He has a friend working at a hospital who had helped him with the supplies and he also secured subsidies coming from the local government. Life is not easy living in an isolated island for a doctor like him but he endured everything as long as he had his daughter with him. His dear Katerina is the most precious person in his life. He once told her that she has to marry someone that will make her happy and not someone that would inflict pain on her. "Or else, that man will see what's it's like to live in hell, while he's alive!" With that remark, his daughter laughed at him and replied, "Father, why do you always think that I will let someone occupy a space in my heart that only belongs to you? I only love you, okay? And if I ever fall for someone then I will make sure that he could match your qualities - handsome, humble, loving and kind. Most of all, he must be very patient and loyal to me because I'm the jealous type, right, father?" those were the words that stuck to the mind of the doctor. He never doubted his child and never would he think that someone would steal her heart and make her suffer.

The storm had really brought some damage at the island. There were flashfloods all over and some of the houses that were made with slight materials have been ruined. The ocean waves were too high and some of the fisherman even did not go out fishing but some of them were brave enough to go out and take their chances. One of them was Luis, who was shocked when he saw a body of a young man floating and being carried by strong water current. He hurriedly went into his direction and pulled away a piece of wood plank where the young man was resting. When he succeeded, he carried him away using his massive and strong muscular body and placed him on his boat. He checked his pulse and he also found out that he still breathing. "I have to take him to the doctor's house, he needs assistance very badly!" the fisherman told himself.

The morning after the storm, doctor Joshua prepares himself to go out and visit some of the families that were affected by the disaster. He intend to give them medicine assistance for free and to help them in any way that he could help them. His daughter, on the other wanted to come with him. "I want to help you, father, please take me with you!" she pleaded.

"Alright, dear! Please bring a the first-aid kit with you, along with the bag with bandages and medicines. Maybe there were people that got injured during the rain."

They were about to go when they heard a loud banging at the door. It was Luis, he was carrying a young man on his shoulder. The doctor helped him placed the stranger on the bed. He checked the young man thoroughly and found out that he was bleeding - there was small cut on the left part of his stomach but luckily, it did not go through the vital parts of his body. The stabbing that he got was a minor and the doctor had to clean the wounds and cover it with bandages.

"Kate, dear, please stay here with the stranger! I will leave alone. He was stabbed but the injury is not that bad. If he wakes up, tell him to calm down, I will come and talk to him later. Meanwhile, please bring clothes for him, I want to change his wet clothes." he commanded his daughter. Katerina immediately followed his father's order and came back with a pair of shorts and a t-shirt that seemed a bit larger for the young man. After giving her father the clothes, she went out until she heard her father calling him.

She went hurriedly and saw the doctor carrying the clothes of the young man. "Please wash his clothes, Kate! Now, he is okay. I already treated his wounds and he would be okay. I wonder what happened to him..." the doctor heaved a sigh while his daughter were focused on the handsome figure who was sleeping quietly on the bed.

"I'm leaving now, dear! Please don't leave our guest. Do make soup for him and just heat it when he wakes up."

"Yes, father!" the young woman replied.

Alone in the house, Katerina went to the kitchen and prepared chicken soup for their visitor. Her thoughts have been with the stranger. She had a smile on her face every time she remembers the perfect straight nose of the young man, his eyebrows, his red lips and even his well-toned body. Not to mention that he is very tall and his skin was flawless. "Maybe he belongs to a very wealthy family. Even when he is sleeping, he is handsome! I wonder if his eyes were pretty too! Oh, my! My heart is beating faster when I saw him on the bed while my father checked on his wounds! But who is he? Why is he even here? When he wakes up, I will ask him. I do hope that he is a good person and my father will like him." the young woman told himself.

Night had come but the young man is still sleeping. The doctor came back and detailed to his daughter the predicament that the islanders have been going through. "You know what, dear? Some of the residents lost their farm animals and others have lost their crops but fortunately no loss of lives were reported. Some have evacuated at the school and others at the small church. Tomorrow, the chairman and I will go to the city and ask for some relief goods from the local authorities along with medicine and other stuff. By the way, is our visitor still sleeping? The wound is not that deep, he could have been awake by now."

His daughter heave a sigh and replied, "When I last went to the room, he was still sleeping and that was an hour ago. I've been here in the kitchen preparing for our dinner. I have no idea father if..."

Katerina suddenly stopped speaking when he saw the figure of a young man entering the kitchen. Now she can conclude that indeed, the stranger is handsome - his grey-green eyes were looking straight at her and she felt very nervous. The doctor gazed on the stranger's direction and smiled at him but the latter frowned while he knitted his brows.

"Who are you people? What is this place? And what am I wearing? Is this an old shirt or a rug, huh? I don't wear rugged clothes like this, even my dad's driver had better clothes than this, bullshit!" ranted the stranger whose face looks like an angel but the way he speaks is the opposite. The doctor had enough of the bad attitude of the young man that he did not reply to any of his questions, instead, he addressed his daughter and asked, "Kate, dear! Are the clothes of our visitor here already dried? If yes, give it to him so he would no longer spew some nonsense!"

"The clothes are dried father! I will give them to him after he eats dinner with us. Hmm...excuse me, do you want to join us for dinner? You've been sleeping since morning...so you must have been very hungry now. Please sit beside my father. I will heat the chicken soup for you." Katerina got up to heat the soup which she cooked for the stranger.

The young man quietly sat beside the doctor and gazed at the young woman. The doctor noticed it and glared at the stranger. "Why are you looking at my daughter?"

Without batting an eyelash, the young man replied, "She is pretty. How come she lives here in the island and not in the city? If she resides in the city, she could have been mine already..."

The doctor almost strangled the young man but he restrained himself. "Be careful on what you say, young man! My daughter is not like those women whom you met from the city or any part of the world, do you hear me?"

Katerina heard their conversation but she ignored it. The two men were both looking at her which made her very anxious. It was the doctor who broke the silence and asked the young man what happened to him and why he had come to the island.

"Someone wanted to kill me but she failed. She hired gunmen to kidnap me and then murder me. If not for storm and for the waves that capsized the boat, I could have been dead by now. My dad will punish her for sure and I'll be damned if she won't rot in jail!" replied the stranger.

"I'm sorry to hear that. By the way, my friend saw you floating on the ocean, so he took you and brought you here. I'm a doctor and I was the one that put a bandage on your wound, aside from the antibiotic that I have given you. After eating, you have to take medicine again and I will check your wounds, okay?"

"Thank you, doc! I'm sorry for what I said earlier! You might thought of me as a spoiled brat but I'm not. I'm really sorry, sir!" the stranger bowed his head to truly show his sincere apology which was readily accepted by the doctor.

"By the way, I'm doctor Joshua Morales and this is my daughter Katerina. May I know who you are, young man?"

The stranger hesitated for a while to give them his name but he replied to the question anyway. "I'm Alexis but you can call me Alex. I lived in the Metropolitan along with my daddy and my stepmother and sister. My biological mother died when I was five years old. That's all I could tell you by now. How about your daughter, does she have a boyfriend?"

Katerina's cheeks reddened, she was blushing, and why not? Her father was being asked by a very attractive young man if she's into a relationship or not. The doctor smirked, irritated by the stranger's straightforward question. "No, and she intends not to have one in the near future. A man she needs is someone that is good enough to take care of her, someone who only loves her and not have so many flings or relationships before..."

"You mean a man who is celibate, sir? Wow! Your standards are so high, doc and I don't think, I could even fit in that! Ha!ha!ha!" he blurted out, laughing while the doctor glared at him whereas the young woman blushed anew. "Looks like I can't be her boyfriend then but I could try, can I, pretty Kate?" the young man winked at Katerina then gave her a wide smile that shows his perfect set of teeth. The doctor almost throw a punch at the young man but his daughter caught his arms and cautioned him to calm down. "Father, he is joking, okay? Don't believe him. He was almost killed and he had an injury, please be kind to him..."

"Thank you for your concern Kate! I'm so sorry doctor if I've crossed the line. I don't mean what I said. It was just to make up for the sadness I am feeling now - I missed my father and I know how worried he is right now. Please forgive me, doc!"

"I'm sorry too, young man! I've lost my cool. Let us forget this incident and tomorrow when I go to the city, I'm going to the police to report the incident that happened to you."

"No doctor! My stepmother should not have any hints that I am alive or else she might hire another set of gunmen to look for me and kill me eventually! Please! Let me stay in your house until I contact my father. It's him that I wanted to talk, and not anyone else!"

Doctor Joshua nodded and promised him not to divulge his whereabouts to other people aside from his friend who brought him into their house. The dinner went well. Both men thanked the young woman for the great but simple food they have shared.

Alone in his room, the stranger stand in front of the mirror and looked closely on his stab wound and muttered himself. "She's gone mad! How dare her do this to me! Dad must know about this and she should punish! But then...if this incident did not happen to me, then I will never have the chance to meet Kate. Oh, how pretty she is! I will make her mine and even her father would not stop me!"