“Okay, you do it too though,” I said.
“Deal.” He extended his hands and we clumsily shook them.Such smooth hands . . .
We both wrote their names on the serviettes and then walked towards the sea, away from the lights of the bar, until we were in relative darkness.
“You go first,” I said, starting to laugh at the ridiculousness of what we were about to do.
“Okay.” Alex held the serviette out and flicked the lighter that he’d borrowed from the barman. He raised the flame to the serviette and it caught fire and started to burn.
“My turn,” I said. I took the lighter from him and lit mine as well. I suspect mine might have gotten soaked in alcohol, because it burst into dramatic flames.
I squealed in fright and then dropped it. It blazed angrily on the sand. “Oh my God.” I picked up my shoe and smashed it into the flaming serviette. It exploded and little bits of red glowing material burst into the air. “Wow, that feels quite . . .” I did it again. Harder.
Alex joined in, swatting at the paper and banging his shoe in the sand, trying to put out the still-burning embers.
“This feels quite—” he started, but I cut him off.
“I know.”This felt fucking good!
Finally, when all the flames were out and all the flying bits of red paper had settled, we both stood there looking at each other, out of breath.
“Let’s do it again,” I suddenly said, diving into my handbag and pulling out the secret photo I kept of Matt in my wallet. For a moment I thought about burning the diary, but couldn’t. I wasn’t there yet.
“Okay.” Alex riffled through his wallet and also produced a photo. He lit the photo and held it in his hand as the flames grew bigger. It was dark, and the light from the flames lit up a portion of his face. This man was really good-looking, and nice and fun. It was hard to imagine anyone not wanting to marry him; okay, well, there was that problem with the clothes.
It was my turn now. I took the lighter and looked down at the photo of Matt. God, I loved this photo of him and I’d spent a long time staring at it. He’d gone to get passport photos done and I’d seen them lying on his desk and had pocketed one. I flicked the lighter and held the flame a little way away from it, reluctant to set it on fire.
“Do it,” Alex urged.
I nodded, and slowly, slowly brought the flame up. The second the flame came into contact with the photo, it immediately engulfed it. And soon, it looked like Matt’s face was peeling off. I stared at it as the flames obliterated it in front of my eyes and a strange feeling whacked me in the gut. I inhaled sharply and then dropped the photo to the floor, where I watched it curl, burn and finally disappear into the sand.
“That felt . . .” I paused, almost frightened to say it out loud. “Good.”
“I know,” Alex said with a kind of reverence in his voice. And then, with great excitement, he said, “Let’s burn it all!”
Suddenly, he ripped the black leather jacket off and threw it to the ground. “I hate this thing,” he said, looking at me. “She bought it for me. She said I dressed boringly. She wanted me to be more ‘edgy,’ whatever that means.” He threw some sloppy air commas around and I laughed. Partly in relief, as finally this odd outfit was making sense.She’d dressed him!
“Wait, get some sticks!” He ran off excitedly towards a pile of driftwood and grabbed some pieces. I did the same and soon we were piling the sticks together to create our very own bonfire.
“Here.” I ripped a few pages out of one of the magazines and scrunched them up, putting them under the sticks.
“This is fucking fantastic!” Alex said excitedly as the paper, and soon the sticks, started burning. And then, he took his shirt off too.
“I can’t tell you how much I hate this thing!” He held the shirt over the flames and all I could now look at was his body. It was very obvious that this man had seen the inside of a gym recently, that’s for sure. “For the last six months she’s been trying to dress me like a Kiss band member,” he said, “and I did. I did it because she wanted me to, I even pierced my ear, and then she went and left me for a rock star.”
I tore my eyes away from his body and looked into his eyes. “A rock star?”
He nodded, taking the earring out. “Yes. An actual man who sings in a rock band. Apparently, I’m not fun enough. Apparently, I’m too much of a nice guy. Apparently, I’m not cool enough.”
“Drop them.” I pointed at the offensive shirt and earring. “Set them on fire. Burn, baby, burn!” I almost yelled this last part, getting swept away in the moment. He dropped it, and the shirt burst into flames.
I watched as the smoke billowed up into the dark night sky. There was something so cathartic about it all. Watching it rise up into the air, twisting and flapping in the breeze and then finally disappearing out of sight completely as it melted into the darkness. “Give me that highlighter again.” I held my hand out for it.
I tore out more of the magazine paper and proceeded to write Matt’s name over and over and over again. I threw the pieces of paper into the fire and delighted in the sight of the flames immediately incinerating them. The flames leapt onto the paper like a pack of hungry animals, devouring it in seconds with a hiss and a crackle and pop. The sounds and smells of the burning paper were strangely intoxicating.
“Fuck it,” Alex said. “Let’s burn everything.” And then suddenly, without warning, he unzipped his jeans, pulled them off—taking the ring box out of his pocket—and tossed them onto the pile.
I looked up from the fire and my jaw swung open as he stood there in his underwear. My sight was a little blurry right now. And granted I was finding it somewhat hard to focus on objects for too long, but I squinted my eyes together to try and get a better look at his body. And it was worth the effort. The warm color of the flames illuminated his torso, casting shadows and highlights on him in all the right places. He had the kind of abs I write magazine articles about, the kind of chest men probably spend their lives bench pressing for, the perfect amount of manly chest hair in just the right spot and . . . I blinked a few times, as my eyes strained and finally I could no longer focus.
