You're thinking it over
But you just can't sort it out
Do you want someone to tell you
What they think it's all about
Are you the one and only
Who's sad and lonely
You're reaching for the top
Well, the music keeps you going
And it's never gonna stop
It's never gonna stop
I sent the devil back into the night and brought the thief of hearts with me down to the water this morning to start fresh, to start over. To baptize ourselves in the rain and the sea as blessed, precious beings and not dark evil creatures unable to meet your eyes. I refuse to be that, for him or for anyone.
I put on eighties power ballads and brought us back around, leaving the devil in our dreams. That isn't us. It isn't anything like us. It isn't what we wanted or who we are.
But in the dark things change.
This isn't the dark anymore, I tell the tides, stretching my body out over the surf, balancing on my arms, up to the bracelets as always, as far as I'm allowed to go on mornings where it's too cold to go in all the way.
Sure is, she giggles, turning away, trying to pull me out with her as she retreats from my assertions of innocence, my demand for all eyes to look away. She'll be right back. Jake leans forward and picks me up by the elbows, standing me back on drier sand, asking me in my head why I tempt fate, as if fate is a thing, so much softer and more compelling than evil, so much warmer and cozier.
Because he's there and you're gone now, I tell him, just to keep his heart broken so he knows what I feel like.
Jacob's expression collapses and I can't look so I look at Lochlan, who's never more than ten feet away down here. He's crouched down picking up tiny treasures for me from the shore. Frosted glass teardrops, frozen in time from Jacob's eyes. He brings me a handful and I put them in my pocket for safekeeping. If I collect them all then I can control Jacob's regret. Eventually I can get in front of it and head off the future by changing the past.
No, you can't, Lochlan reminds me confidently and I know he's right. The sea rushes in to grab me by the knees as if to pound home his point and Jacob dissolves in the saltwater like he always does, leaving only the red of my favourite fire behind. Lochlan grabs my hand to keep me on shore and his skin is so warm. So warm he melts the glass in my pocket into one solid chunk. Just like my heart.