Bonfire of the Valentines

Fiona drew her puffa coat around her as she searched for her spot on the deserted beach. When she arrived she set the stones in a circle and found the cooking grate which had become lodged in the long grass behind the sand dune.

She turned her face to the fading sun taking on its last rays before the dark descended. She carefully lit the small fire and let it grow to the point where she could put the small pot and skillet she had brought with her on to the make shift stove.

She loved cooking outdoors. It was one of the things that brought her joy. He had shown her how. Two years ago. When neither of them could think of anything more than being together.

Fiona knew she would think of him today. She knew she needed space to think about him. She pushed through the day. Filling her time knowing the thoughts of him would break through.

Through the time she spent in treatment she knew that the best way to deal with her emotions. She would set aside the time and space to do it. This needed a lot of time. This needed something special.

She opened her bag and took out her tape player and put in her heart break mixtape. She poured her lentils into the pan and placed her sausages on the grill.

Constant Craving by KD Lang blasted out as she swayed and let the music take her over. Her hair had grown back. She liked that it was long enough now to flow in the breeze. It was a physical sign of time passing and her feeling better. Taking on the World by Gun played on. She sat next to the fire and ate her food slowly and deliberately.

Her mind went back to when she was last with him. The hurt in his eyes as she told him she was leaving. His pleading for her to change her mind. She knew he would. At the time she had no feelings. She was numb from shock.

The numbness left her over six months ago. When she began to feel again she felt everything she had placed on hold after the accident. It was as though her body had placed her emotions on pause. The volume, the rawness the intensity nearly broke her.

She left him. She lost the baby. She would never feel like that again in her life. The sobs started slowly, then they came in waves. She could hear Your Song by Elton John. She thought of his blue eyes boring into hers. Pleading with her not to leave. Then his eyes when he rubbed her pregnant belly the love, the warmth. When would she feel that again? Never with him. The finality of that thought broke her.

The tears spilled down her cheeks as she thought of the way they had become friends and then lovers. She fought back the sobs when she thought of how stubborn she had been two years ago. Why did she let him leave for Boston? Why did she not go after him. Love him. Be with him. The waste. The waste of love. What a crime.

She finished eating and she walked quickly to the nearest rock pool and cleaned her plate. She threw the boiled water into the sea. She thought of their time in Abersoch looking at the Welsh sea and she wondered if any molecule of water that was in the sea that day had made it there to Jersey. To mock her. Her stupidity, her stubbornness, her pride.

Top of the City by Kate Bush rang out around. 'She's no good for you baby. She's no good for you now." Fiona knew that David had gone back to Suzie. When her girlfriends had come over to Jersey before Christmas they had shown her their holiday photographs. All of them had gone to his holiday home in Nantucket. The photos showed him looking well and happy. It was like a knife to her heart.

The photographs of him with her were the worst. The one of them both asleep on the hammock was one she would never leave from her memory. He looked happy. She looked like he had spent the whole previous night making her happy. That was too much for her to bear.

Fiona pulled her knitted hat down a little more as she braced herself against the Jersey wind. She wondered if he was in any way feeling the same. She shook off that feeling as quickly as she could. She left him.