When it rains in the desert

I wish

"Happy birthday to you!" Rory waltzes into my bedroom at stupid o'clock in the morning with a cereal birthday cake like she does every year.

Wanna know why she doesn't make real cake? You guessed it. She can't keep the eggs long enough without aiming them at someone's head. Usually mine.

Rory and Lia moved out a couple of months ago to move in with Mark after the wedding. Yes you heard right, Lia got married! And I was so happy for her.

Mark is a good guy, like a really good guy. I will admit I was a bastard to him when they first started dating but can you really blame me? I was just trying to protect my baby sister the way I should've done all those years ago.

I think she understood why I was hesitant though. I think she was hesitant too. But after two years of me grilling him I had to have a little bit of respect for him.

And a bonus is that Rory loves him too. I think when they first started dating me and Rory were in agreement to make his life hell.

"Hi, I'm mark it's nice to meet you" Mark said, extending his hand for me to shake it. I raised my eyebrows and let him into the apartment.

Lia had scheduled this "meeting" weeks ago. I walked into the kitchen and smiled at Rory. She walked over to Mark and hugged him.

He smiled and returned the gesture "awww hey roar" he said. She scrunched her nose at being called roar. Stupid nickname.

"Why don't you take a seat Mark, me and Rory will join you in just a second" He clapped his hands together and nodded. The poor thing looked so nervous.

Me and Rory went back into the kitchen and I bent down to talk to her. "Did you do it?" I asked. She looked me dead in the eyes and said "affirmative" nodding her head.

I laughed, " where did you learn to talk like that munch?" She shrugged her shoulders and walked out of the kitchen, me trailing her from behind.

Lia wasn't going to be here, the whole purpose of this was for me and Rory to get to like mark.

A little while after I'd served dinner and sat down I saw Mark digging into the chicken I'd made. I looked over at Rory and winked at her. It was the secret signal.

"So Mark, Lia told me that you work in environmental law?" He put his fork down ready to answer when we heard a "pffftttttt" sound.

He looked around him and me and Rory looked back at him as though nothing had happened. "Everything okay Mark?" I asked, fake concern in my voice.

I was proud of Rory for keeping her face so straight.

"Yeah, yes, sorry" he said shaking his head. "Yeah, environmental law is very interesting to-" I gave Rory another wink. "Pfftttt"

Mark looked around again. I could tell Rory was so close to laughing I thought I'd just do it again. Another wink and another "pfttttt" noise.

Me and Rory burst out laughing, holding our stomachs, gasping for air kind of laughter. Rory revealed the remote she was holding that connecting to the small speaker she'd put in Marks pocket when she hugged him.

Mark looked over at us laughing nervously whilst we were still trying to catch our breaths.

Safe to say we gave him a hard time so I guess he earned it.

Sometimes Rory and Lia stay over, I know it's because Lia wants to keep an eye on me and I really enjoy their company.

It sounds stupid but I never thought I could love a child as much I loved Rory. She was like my own daughter, except I didn't have to do all the bad guy parenting.

They stayed over last night. And now they were stood at the foot of my bed not letting me sleep at 3am in the morning. I had to remind myself that I really loved them to resist the urge to kick them out.

I slowly sat up in my bed, rubbing my eyes and Rory got into the bed next to me, hugging me. I looked at her and said "together"

Lia was holding the cereal with the candle placed in the middle. "1...2..3... make a wish." Lia said. Me and Rory blew out the candle together.

"What did you wish for uncle Jacob?" Rory jumped at me. I took her shoulders to stop her from jumping and said " hey hey I told you the rule. You can't tell your wish or it won't come true huh?"

She clapped her hands over her mouth and said "whoops forgot" and sat back down next to me. We shuffled over so Lia could get onto the bed next to Rory.

I whispered "I wished for sleep now let's get some" and lay back down and Rory jumped up, laughing. "Well now I can't let you sleep."

Lia furrowed her eyebrows and said "and why is that sweetheart?" Rory looked over at her mother and said " he told us his wish so now it won't come true. "

We both looked at each other and thought the same thing. My hands went to Rory's stomach and Lias  went to her armpits.

Rory squealed whilst we tickled her until she couldn't breathe, until she ran out of the room to get away from us.

We were laughing when Lia looked at me, the humour in her eyes completely gone now. "Same wish?" She asked. I looked at her, nodded and then looked back into my hands.

She put her head on my shoulder and said "I'm sorry" I nodded and after a moment of silence she said "I'll let you get some sleep." And walked out of my room.

I lay down and though of the time I'd told her my wish. It was the November after My Celia passed. I wasn't in the mood to celebrate but Rory didn't understand so  I blew out the candles for her sake.

Lia asked me what I'd wished for and I was too tired to lie. "I wished for it to rain in the desert" she didn't understand at the time. She just let me be.

A few months after she'd asked me again what it meant and I told her. I told her that I'd promised her I'd stop loving her when it rained in the desert and I was starting to believe it to be true.

I'd told her that it was too painful to love her like that when she wasn't there to love me back. I'd told her that it was so hard and exhausting to be in love with a memory.

As I'm sat here writing this I realise that I was stupid to wish for that. It wasn't painful loving Celia, it was painful losing her. And although she was my ruination, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

You see, being loved by Celia was my greatest accomplishment. Loving Celia was my greatest honour. She was an earthquake, a tsunami, a beautiful disaster and she left me in her wake.

I still can't think about Rick without wanting to tear my skin off but he was right about one thing. Love is weakness, a beautiful, dangerous, delicious weakness.

But weaknesses aren't always bad. They make us human. And if Celias love made me weak that I don't ever want to be strong ever again because I have never felt more alive than when I was in her arms.

So if love makes you weak, I want to be the weakest man that ever walked the earth.