He put his hands over my eyes and spoke with his mouth against my ear.
Don't look, peanut. And when we leave tonight you're going to say you were somewhere else. I'll fix everything if it takes me the rest of my life.
I listened. I always did what Lochlan told me, even two nights after he broke up with me when he showed up at the house and asked me to go for a drive with him. We drove across one province and into the next. We drove for hours. He said he didn't want to break up but we had to keep up the appearance for safety's sake.
I was there when he torched our camper. I closed my eyes for absolution. I closed them in alibi. I closed them under orders and I kept the secret up until now because it's no longer important to keep some secrets. Sometimes old ones are let go in order to make way for new ones.
Of course it looked like an accident. He controls fire for a living. But he did not do it out of a sense of malice, he did it to move us to the next chapter in our lives. He did it to erase my memories and soothe my fears. He did it, at great risk, for me. And when he realized he didn't have his journals because he had taken everything out and put it in the back of his truck and then they were missing he was crushed. He has had the journals back for a while now and the truth is out and I was right.
Time corrupts.
