The Northern Lights are not green.

I’m sure I’m offending Scandi natives by even suggesting such a thing but… the Northern Lights are not green. At least from where I’m standing, at the northern-most tip of the Scottish mainland, they are not green. Rachel is most upset. The Northern Lights at Dunnet Head are grey. There is about 3 ft of land left between us and the sea. I couldn’t have brought her any closer to them without getting into a boat or a plane.

“This is going to look awful on Instagram!” She pouts, as if somehow getting a photo to post online was of the utmost importance.

I can barely see my hands in the darkness and yet I can clearly picture the distress on my girlfriend’s face. I know that she has crinkled up her hazel eyes as she looks for something she might have missed. I know that she will be weaving her fingers through the ends of her blonde ponytail, strands pulling away as they wrap around the fibres of her gloves. I know she will be moving from side to side with impatience, the grown-up version of toddler’s stamping their feet in tantrum.

And yet, there they are.

At this latitude, 58° 40' 12.59" N to be precise, the lights are active. I have always enjoyed them here, particularly around now in January. It is dark enough that they can be tracked with the naked eye despite it being only 5pm. They come in flares, evidence that there was an explosion of energy in a far-off celestial plane. I’ve seen the lights enough to know their pattern. The greyness will first look small, extending in a vertical until it touches the horizon. It is then that the horizontal will appear. The famous images are the waves of light, the great sea monster cresting above clouds. It can last minutes, it can last hours. But it is always the same, always grey.

“Is that it? Really?” Rachel’s voice is louder. I can tell she has turned her head to face me.

“It is.” I answer plainly, truthfully. I continue to stare due north, towards the sea.

If I was sitting on some beachside bar in the Mediterranean I would be listening to the gentle lap of waves. Instead, the crash of water fills my ears, the constant battle taking place below. Dunnet Head is where the Atlantic Ocean and North Sea merge- two bodies of water known for their treachery and violence. They crash and swell, crest and fall in a constant stage of turmoil. It resonates inside me, a reminder of how fragile I am.

“Well, this was hardly worth the drive.” Rachel scoffs. She spoils the veil of darkness by turning on her phone. She opens her social media feed, the endless loop of nothingness. I can see her thumb flick upwards again and again. She isn’t even looking at the images and words on the screen. She is scrolling out of habit, hoping that there will be something that magically appears to inspire her.

“Those are the lights.” There is an edge in my voice. I am annoyed at her. I am annoyed that her phone has made an appearance in this moment. “We travelled specifically to see them.”

“Yeah.” She replies, flippant. “I just thought they would be better.”

Better? I mull this over. This great phenomenon, this scientific dance happening in front of our eyes is not enough for this girl. Driving 7 hours from the city on icy roads in the middle of January is not enough for this girl. I feel my own disappointment welling as a lump in my stomach. I fondle the box in my pocket, the one holding the ring I had planned to give her.

“No.” I decide.

“No?” She looks towards me. The blue light of the screen illuminates the side of her face. She is beautiful, flawless, hollow. She blinks slowly, stupidly.

“I… I don’t love you.” I say aloud. It is the opposite of the evening I had planned. The harshness of it is matched only by the bitter cold nipping at our faces, a reminder that you cannot completely wrap yourself up against reality.

There is a silence. The sea. The wind. Nothing else. Even the constant social media stream has stopped in disbelief.

“What did you say?” It is Rachel’s turn to take a tone. I can sense the venom rising in her, a bile rising through her throat to be spat out.

“I don’t love you, Rachel.” I turn to her. She is shorter than me and I look down to her perfect face. Did I ever really love her? In the car drive up I had told myself that questioning that was just pre-engagement nerves, the cold feet surging before they were ever needed. I told myself it was normal to feel lost in a relationship, it was normal to feel like part of you had disappeared because it had. Couples become this new thing, an entity that merged the traits of their components. But that isn’t what happened with us.

In 4 years, I had lost more and more of myself to please this girl. I had moved away from my rural hometown to live in the city, closer to her friends and family rather than mine. I had given up my job on the farm to work in an office to help pay for things I didn’t really want. I had given up county shows and dirt because she had said it was beneath us. I had to watch sports on my phone to allow her to watch whatever braindead reality TV show she wanted on the big screen I paid for. My clothes were confined to one drawer while her ever-expanding wardrobe filled every cupboard in the house.

“I don’t like this.” I say to her. “I don’t like that special things, really special things, aren’t good enough.”

“Special things? You mean that?” She points her arm at the horizon, waving it lackadaisical at the flare that was spreading across the sky. “It’s trash!”

“It’s not trash.” I am defensive. This was my home county, my childhood land, the place that my parents had brought me to with flasks of hot chocolate and blankets to look up into the stars. This was a special place. This was a special sight. I looked at this girl I had wanted to be special, special enough that I was going to bend my knee and beg for her to be special forever. Instead, I was faced with this vapid creature, an ungrateful fool that couldn’t tell the difference between something truly amazing and the shiny, false images on a screen. It made my blood boil. The rage spread from my chest, into my arms and legs, into my toes until I too was stamping in protest.

“You’re such a bumpkin.” She turns from me, her light hair blowing around her shoulders. I had just told her I was questioning our whole relationship, and she didn’t seem to care.

What was this?

I realised there was more to my feelings. It wasn’t just a lack of love. It wasn’t just the irritancy of being forgotten in my relationship or made to feel like a second thought in my own home. It was hatred. I hated her. I hated her stupid hair and her stupid face. I hated her stupid job and stupid friends.

“I hate this stupid phone!” I growl. I grab the device from her hand and before either of us have time to speak I launch it over the edge of the cliff and into the sea below. There is no way to hear it fall. The crashing water is too loud.

She looks offended, stunned, shook that I have dared to stand up to her. Despite the darkness I can see the rage in her eyes. Hurting her precious social media feed is more than just an attack on her things, it is an attack on her very being. She is very still.

“Go and get it.” She hisses at me, a sound almost lost to the howl of the wind.

I shake my head at her stupidity and turn to walk back towards the car.

She grabs my shoulder to shout at me. “Go and get it!”

She is screaming. She is hysterical. This. This is the thing that sparks a reaction in her. I am disgusted. I don’t want her touching me. I don’t want her there. I don’t want her in this place. I don’t want her seeing the lights. I don’t want her.

I push, hard enough that she tumbles over the safety wall and to the edge of the cliff.

She screams.

In the darkness I see her lose her footing, unable to steady herself on the uneven rocks. She disappears toward her precious phone.

There is a streak in the sky and the grey appears to flash green- a particularly strong solar flare. It is beautiful.