Saturday 15 February 2020

Rich men purchase, poor men plan.

It used to be easier to say that before I forced the rich one to apply the laws of California (an expression in our house. It means half.) to my life just to stick it to him further at one point for the fiasco that was Henry's paternity suit and efforts to muscle his way right in on a permanent rather than symbolic level.

Lochlan was given equal everything for a time. If I got a deposit so did he. It was five years of misery for Caleb and by the time I let him off the hook Lochlan could have retired in the past, he had so much in the bank. I helped him invest it, I'm not a hundred percent sure he understands the gravity of it because he still grabs his cases and runs off any time someone needs anything computer related because he has ego issues, like everyone here. I keep pointing out his dividends, his compound interest, his capital gains, as if to show him, oh I think I fucked this up but here's what you kept (because I am also stubborn and probably doing this wrong) and he kind of shakes his head but he's said before it's blood money and he doesn't want it, a curse born of a tragedy and fuck that shit poor is better and I agree but the poor one at the end of this life isn't going to be him or me, it should be the Devil.

Last night Lochlan appeared quite suddenly just before dark. I had been previously warned that he was 'working' all afternoon (rolled my eyes, I did) and not to eat dinner as we would have a date when he came home.

He was home the whole time, someone else took his truck. Plotting and scheming and planning.

We had what he has chosen to call an inside-out bonfire. He made a huge heart-shaped bonfire on the beach, picnic blanket in the centre, laden down with sweet things and flowers scattered everywhere.

Ready? he asks. We are standing far back from it. It's huge. It's as if the entire beach is on fire and the flames are up to my knees. He takes my hand but I pull away. Honestly it was an amount of fire I haven't seen before, not since the camper and I was afraid.

I don't know why, things have changed. This was romance, not danger.

He did that thing where he waits for my confirmation that I trust him and we stepped into the heart.

I lived.

Inside the heart was cake. We ate the cake and threw the flowers into the flames one after another to make ad-hoc wishes and when the tide rose and began to put the fire out, beginning at the point of the heart, it was time to go. I didn't want to go, high on sugar with smoke in my hair and salt on my skin I wanted to stay all night but it started to rain then and he laughed and said Mother Nature is helping because we're late for the next phase.

The next phase was upstairs in our warm room with more flowers, more flames and some unspeakable, unprintable acts.

No one can do what he does to me. Not Caleb, not Ben, not even Jacob. He ties my heart in knots and then makes it bloom. He cleanses us with fire. He makes everything fun.

And he's surprisingly not excited about the bees.