What if I warned you, you can't outrun your fate?
Would you believe with time comes grace?
In perfect light, in perfect place
Every dream was mine to lose
And that's what it took to lead me to youSo here's to the heartache
Here's to the mistakes
We'll drink to all the years, the tears
That led to this place
So here's to the heartacheWhat if I told you that everything fades away?
What if I hold you, but tell you there's just no escape?
He's a whopping fifty-eight today, which seems old considering the first birthday I was privileged enough to witness was a cold snowy day when he turned seventeen. That's how I know him. That's how he stays, in my mind. He's hardly changed, from the medium-blue flashing eyes to the destructive temper to the incredible jealousy to this devastatingly crushing charisma.
My monster, I love him so. He is decidedly non-negotiable, a new evolutionary kink in the perfect gears of my history. It can't be fixed. Instead you will hear a clunk-sound with every single revolution and eventually you won't hear it at all anymore.
He prefers pie over cake for birthdays now but only a single slice and then never comes back for more. Strawberry, if it's available, with coffee ice cream on the side. He's more interested in the good French brandy of late nights, heavy rain muting the burn, reading my skin like a good book. That's what he really wants for his birthday, in spite of my efforts to cover myself with things I knew he would hate. Lyrics from bands he won't listen to, pictures of things he doesn't have any interest in, making sure I changed into a different person, wearing a different skin, since in my brain he ruined the first one but I know he couldn't help it and I'm not sure I blame him for that anymore because it wasn't a fleeting moment, it wasn't a spontaneous decision and I am to him what Lochlan is to me and I don't know if you can burden a soul with that sort of responsibility when they would give it away if they could.
He wants to go for breakfast but doesn't want to eat in the car. We'll bring it home. Maybe have a picnic in the stables?
(It's supposed to rain.)
He nods. First we need to finish this.
You have to drive.
We'll have it delivered. I can fill the time while we wait. He tilts his head toward me and smiles one of those rare big warm grins that always reminds me how much alike Caleb and Cole look but also reminds me that before me, Caleb was just a boy.
And before him, I was a happy, innocent child.
I take another drink to drown that memory because while it's not a good one, look at this. The price I paid was everything, and in return for that here I am standing on a warm private beach down at the bottom of the cliff from my huge house that is filled with a whole sleeping army watching over my beautiful sleeping children and I'm wearing diamonds and drinking Dom Pérignon from the bottle. I questionably whole, still completely crazy and moderately feral and yet well-taken care of. I still get to count Lochlan first and she, well, she'll come around eventually. I hope she will, anyway.
I finish the bottle. Happy Birthday, Diabhal.
Thank you my Neamhchiontach. I am sad today, though.
Why? I wipe off my mouth on my sleeve. Forever ten years old. Just the way he wanted, frozen in these moments forever.
Because tomorrow this time, I'll be alone in the crowd again, and I think I've had the best week of my life.
I take the compliment and put it in my pocket, fastening the button at the top. I don't give it back. This is how she pays him back for everything in her own little ways. It hurts him more, she says and I believe her. I'll always believe her. They should have, too.