Those Eyes

Well, here it is. My story. I wouldn't feel comfortable posting it anywhere else. This one has a more personal element to it, more than the others I've written, or more obvious anyway. This story stems off of a dream I've had before. An imagined scene playing over in my memory, filling me with something I haven't begun to interpret. Finally, it finds release upon this wearied paper.

Those Eyes

“How are you feeling?” He asked, his eyes ripe with concern and something intangible, lurking behind their dark brown façade.

“I’m tired, I feel pulled in a hundred different directions (made worse by sheer distance), and my heart hurts, so much.” She finished, her clenched fist pressed to the part of her chest where her heart lay, beating inadequately, leaving her hands and body cold in the summer heat.

He flinched imperceptibly, taking in the shadows that seemed etched into the smooth skin just below her pale eyes. He felt his hand twitch as he tried not to clench it into a fist. This is my fault, isn’t it? He thought to himself. Somehow, he’d known this would happen, all those long months ago. As she turned her head away he silently condemned himself for being so thoughtless, so selfish. He could have prevented this, had he wanted to, had he even thought to try.

Fighting the urge to lean in closer and read the answer in her eyes, he asked her quietly, “Did you have anything in particular planned, for while you were here?”

She looked back at him slowly. “Not really. I was just going to stop here for the night, try to get some sleep, if I could.” She looked down at her lap, and for once he felt ready to damn the thick eyelashes framing her eyes. He had never felt so helpless, he was sure. All those times before, when his life had felt so completely out of his control, didn’t come close to this feeling of powerlessness raging within him. Had that really been him, all those long months ago? Had he really been the one to say those hateful words?

“You shouldn’t rely on me. It isn’t a wise thing to do. I can’t be there for you, not in the way you want me to be.”

How could he not have seen what was happening before his very eyes?

As he started thanking whatever power was out there for leading her to cross his path tonight, for letting him find her despite all the odds against him, she sighed.

“Don’t blame yourself. That’s only too easy to do, I know. But even if you had been there for me,” he winced at the words she used, free of the rancor and bitterness to which she had justifiable rights to, “nothing much would have changed. We’d still be where we are today.”

“You know that’s not true,” he answered stiffly, disgusted with himself.

She lifted her eyes, slightly startled, and looked at him from beneath her eyelashes. He felt frozen, appalled at what a single year had done to her, horrified with himself. The circles under her eyes were more pronounced from this angle, darker. Their bruise-like, purplish tinge surrounded them completely, encircled those eyes he adored so much. His heart stopped beating momentarily as he realized that eyes like that could only be found, could only belong, in a hospital bed, waiting for sickness to overwhelm, and death to come.

What had he done?

For a second she gazed at him like this, entirely innocent of the pain she was opening him up to. Then she stood, stepping away from the wide bench. With light feet she crossed the soft grass, giving him fresh heartache as he watched her, remembering how closely her eyes had matched that brilliant, vibrant grass. Halfway to the wide oak, she stumbled. As she fell forward she caught herself with her hands and twisted around, landing with a resigned sigh on her back before she raised herself up into a sprawled, sitting position. She caught his gaze with a sudden flash of anguish, and suddenly there were tears in her worn, frustrated eyes.

Already bounding off the bench, he half-ran to stand before her. He helped her up, grasping her cold hands in his own, and said angrily, “This is my fault.” And then she was collapsing into him, held securely within his embrace, both of his arms wrapped firmly around her shoulders and back. Leaning into his chest she inhaled, closed her eyes. She tried to memorize this moment, to imprint onto her heart this feeling of love and concern and warmth all wrapped up in one man.

“Why couldn’t you have told me?” He asked her, giving a huge, gusting sigh. All those nights she had lain awake, all those tears she’d cried alone. His heart gasped at the pain, stumbled beneath the weight of the guilt that he felt.

“It wouldn’t have been fair.”

Pulling back, he lifted her face in his palm, letting his thumb linger just beneath her shadowed eyes. “No,” he whispered, “this isn’t fair. Can’t you see what this does to me?”

Blinking back tears, she twisted her face self-deprecatingly and looked away at the evening sky. “What else was I to do? I couldn’t put that on you. It wasn’t your burden.”

Heart heavy with shame, buried his face in her hair. “It was. It is.”

“No,” she let out on a strangled sob, and then pulled away from him, struggling ineffectually to break out of his grasp. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” He asked her, agonized, tightening his arms around her. His heart wrenched from his chest when she continued to struggle desperately, his lungs seemed to shrink, his throat close up.

“I won’t trap you. I won’t. Don’t stay.” Her face crumpled then, tears flooding her eyes in an endless stream.

He placed his hand at the base of her head and looked into her eyes, his own blazing with intensity. Then he said forcefully, stubbornly, “No. I won’t.” They stared at each other for a long moment, lost to the world, each one searching the other’s depths to find the answer, the will. Finally, all the tension fled from her body, the struggle went out like a star at dawn, and she sank into him, still crying. She tucked her head into the hollow between his collar bone and neck, her fingers clinging to his back. He held her close to him, as gently as though she would shatter at the slightest breeze, and breathed into her ear, “I’m not going anywhere, not anymore.” He shook his head, knowing she would feel the movement. Then he clenched his jaw, hoping she wouldn’t notice.

How many times had he screwed up with her before? Yet each time, she’d come back. Unaware of what kind of mess she was gravitating towards. Unbelievably, she’d come back to him, despite his endless warnings. But he’d screwed up one time too many, let himself think she would always be there, would always come back. She hadn’t. Would she stay this time?

His heart sighed.

He closed his eyes, brown eyes swimming in thankfulness and wonder. She had come home, inexplicably. Of course, he wouldn’t lie to himself and believe that this place was her home. No, he was her home. These arms that had waited years just to hold her, this heart that hadn’t beat until the moment he first heard her voice. Nothing had ever felt more right, not in all his life.

“Don’t worry,” he told her. He would take care of her.

He wouldn’t have believed it before he met her, would have discarded the idea as fallacy, but until she had opened his eyes and brought the sun back to his world, he hadn’t even begun to live. His life had started right here, with her.

She was his sun, the light by which he wrote, the beam that guided him through the rocks, his ballast in a raging sea.

He couldn’t have done half the things he had if not for her. His heart wouldn’t be whole, wouldn’t be beating, if not for her.

She sighed and pressed closer. He opened his eyes and looked at the leaves above them, listened as they danced in the wind. What was she thinking, in this moment? He tightened his arms again, reveling in the way her body seemed to fit inside his, the way it seemed to wrap itself around him perfectly. There was no feeling like it.

She looked up, then, leaning her head on his shoulder, eyes still wet. “I should be going now. I need to find a hotel, for the night,” she said in a small voice, sighing at the end. His heart seized and skipped a beat. He couldn’t let her leave him so soon.

Touching the hair at her temple, focusing on the smooth strands, he asked tentatively, “Why not stay with me?”

Her breath caught, and he glanced quickly into her eyes. There was a frown on her face, scrutinizing him. When she found what she’d needed, she said one word: “Okay.”

Something blew through his chest, filled his lungs to bursting, carried his heart away. Her word, her voice, stole every particle of him that kept his soul bound within his body. He felt his chest expand, pride and incalculable joy engulfed him entirely. Feeling humbled that she would choose to give him another chance, however small, he closed his eyes and set his forehead against hers.

Smiling, he answered her with one word, brimming with a thousand untold emotions: “Okay.”

And it was.

He would hold her, tonight, enfold her into his body. He would measure his heartbeats to the sound of her breathing. He would keep her safe, protect her from the shadows lurking behind the stars. He would fill those empty spaces.

And he would fall asleep with her, knowing, for the first time in his damned life, that there really is something to look forward to, beyond the night.

Knowing, in the morning, there’ll be hope within her eyes.

finite.