The back of the chair looks like a prison gate, and there’s a quality in her eyes I can’t bear to see.
“What?” she whispers.
I made her that hat. For some reason it’s all I can think. I made her that hat. It took me hours, days, weeks. I’m not much of a knitter, never could get into projects that take so long to bear any fruit, but for some reason, for her, I wanted to. Sylvia and I went shopping on a cold Tuesday morning in February, near the beginning of the month I think. I wanted to make it for a Valentine’s day present but Sylvia told me not to be an idiot, and she was right because it took two weeks just to learn a basic stitch. I gave her a pair of earrings instead. She said she liked them but I knew she didn’t, and even though she was trying to be sweet I hated it. I hated that she would lie just to spare me. I hated that I could tell. Why is her face so easy to read, when she never sees my own lies coming? How can she believe all the shit I spit out?
I never meant to hurt her.
She isn’t talking. Jesus Christ, she isn’t talking, does she want me to say it again? I barely got it out the first time I can’t say it again. And the way she’s looking at me – holy hell. Like a deer in headlights, like she’s just waiting for me to laugh, say it was all a joke. A stupid joke, sure, a mistimed joke, the kind of joke that rips your heart out and you never stop wondering if there was truth in and they just backed out before you could hear it… I could pretend it was that kind of joke.
She made the gloves. Why can’t I stop thinking about what she’s wearing? She’s lying on the ground like I shot her through the heart, like she actually fell off the chair, holding those – those – I can’t even remember what they’re called. Slats? – for dear life, and all I can think about is her wardrobe. That’s denial if I’ve ever heard it. It’s just, I hate that we’re both creative types, like we have to fit into some stupid stereotype, like why can’t you eat a piece of fucking red meat and still not want to date a guy? I wish one of us shaved our legs and cared about Manolo Blanic, but it’s not like I didn’t know when we started dating that she’d never read Vogue. I’m not even sure if that’s a magazine.
I have to say something. It’s getting awkward. She’s staring at me. I fell in love with her because of her eyes. How big they are, how brown, how perfectly sloped so that they look just a little exotic even though they’re not. I mean, she’s not, I mean, you know. It was her eyes I fell in love her. I never told her that because you’re supposed to tell people that you love them for their minds, and that’s good too, but what’s wrong with loving the surface? We see it every Goddamn day, don’t we? Let’s bring a little honesty into the world, I loved her eyes. I loved the way she wore her hair, the way she matched her lipstick to her clothes. I love her quirky sense of fashion and how she can smile with just her eyes. Those eyes. And now they’re staring at me and saying, take it back, take it back, laugh and make it go away. Take it back.
God, I can’t say it twice. I have to close my eyes. I can’t look into hers – I can’t say it twice.
“It’s over.”
Today’s image comes to you courtesy of Rene Blais. Check out his work on His Facebook Page, and see more about him on Lucid Dreaming’s Contributors Page.