My Lovers’ Eyes Are Different Each Time

A Short Story By Ikkannii

        I woke up underneath the covers of my bed. Even after sleeping for fourteen hours straight, night was still roaming outside the window as my bedroom was still dark. A faint glowing aura from the lights down the street leaked in through the window to let me see faintly around my room.

I was disappointed I had woken up already. What do I do now? I didn’t feel like doing anything. What would a person awake at this time do? Lately, I have had no job or goals to occupy my free time.

Contorting my body as I stretched, I rearranged myself, and my limbs fell on a pile of clothes beside me. An amalgamation of worn and fresh laundry piled up next to me on the left side of my king size bed. I usually slept on the right side, so I placed clothes, books, and shopping bags on the left side of the bed.

I was awake and thinking already. I couldn’t fall back to sleep like I normally do. I got up from my bed and stood in the middle of the room. Bending down and reaching for my toes to stretch, I closed my eyes, reminiscing of sleep.

I stood up and walked out into the hallway, following the orange hue of the kitchen light I left turned on overnight. I stood in front of the kitchen sink and window. I witnessed no light from the apartment windows across the street from mine. I may be the only one awake in the city. I felt cold and thirsty standing there. I opened the fridge and took out a slice of pizza and an open beer bottle. I swear the pizza was colder than the beer. Smelling a pungent odor from my arm pits, I left the pizza crust on the counter and took the beer with me. Walking to the bathroom, I pulled the towel off from the dining room chair I had passed by and draped it over my shoulder. Each step to the bathroom, I felt the cold floor, still, colder than the beer.

I finished drinking the beer and left it near the bathroom’s door frame. The bathroom was dark. I placed a hand on the bathroom sink and navigated my hand down to pull open a drawer. Cupping a box of matches, I took it out and lit a match. I hovered the lit match over a candle on the rim of the sink and lowered the flame to light the wick. After an initial crackle, the flame had gotten as big as it can get before it subsided down to a smaller size. I blew out the match and tossed it in the trash can.

I stripped my clothes off and turned the shower faucet until it spewed out scorching hot water on me. I squatted down and imagined myself as the candle wax melting from the heat. I wanted to liquify from the hot water and go down the drain.

After an hour of showering, I turned the water off and stepped out. I glided the towel all over my body to dry off. I walked out of the bathroom naked, leaving my clothes and towel bundled up on the bathroom floor.

My apartment was chilly, but my bare body was still warm from the hot shower. I turned on the hallway light and passed by blank, white canvases in various sizes leaning against the wall.

I entered my dark room illuminated by the amber light from the hallway. My room was a mess. Aside from the pile of things on my bed, more of them were scattered all over the floors and my desk. I sighed and stood in front of the full-length wall mirror in the corner of the room. Looking at the reflection of my naked body, my gaze went up to meet my eyes. I felt like my body, my soul, and my mind were different beings coexisting. I saw them from different perspectives. I looked at myself, at my body, at her, and back at me. I grinned at her, and she grinned back.

I unblurred my eyes and looked at the reflection of my room and the items behind me: Three stacks of soap loaves on top of a cloth sat on my desk. My relatives had an artisanal soap business, and they often send me loaves every three months. In the middle of the room, the back of an easel stood. White cloths covered in paint blotches littered below it. The canvas on the easel faced away from where I stood, only seeing wood and staples of the canvas stretcher at the back.

I got sick of the mess in my room. I went around the room and bent down to collect clothes, empty shopping bags, and unopened mail from the floor. I left the books littered on the floor. I opened a door to a stuffy closet and dumped out everything in my arms. I was reckless, thrashing arms to make more space in my closet. I turned around. The canvas a few feet away from me was the only thing I was looking at. On the white canvas, a single red brush stroke existed on the surrounding large white space. I walked towards the easel. I picked up the canvas by its sides and I turned around to throw it into the closet with all my strength. The canvas hit a shelf above before it landed below on a pile of things. A box stacked on top of other boxes and containers fell from its great height. It hit the floor and scattered all of its contents out.

I was furious about the mess but the anger quickly washed over as I looked at the things that fell out of the box. I grew curious about the contents that spilled out of the box. I went down on my knees and picked through the things. A box of cigarettes intrigued me. Beckham. I remembered how the brand on the box of cigarettes was a favorite of my first boyfriend.

        I met Beckham in college. I was a nineteen-year-old freshman in my home state waiting tables at an italian restaurant during weekends. Beckham was a twenty-one-year-old senior attending the same college. He had been a member of a pretentious fraternity that always hosted parties every weekend. I initially didn’t want to date Beckham, but I was pressured into considering it when my college friends pointed out how he would skip the weekend parties at the fraternity house to visit me at the restaurant I worked at. He always appeared in the sections I served at. He would stay up to hours sitting alone at his table. He tried to squeeze out as much conversation with me every time I went to his table to serve him food or get his order. One night, in the middle of my shift, he had brought me a bouquet of roses and asked me out on a date. I gave in and said yes.

Our first date, and my first ever date, was a picnic at a park the weekend after he had asked me out. Beckham brought cheese, chocolates, and red wine. It was hot, but we sat on a blanket under the tree shade. After eating, we packed up the picnic and left it in his car trunk. We walked and talked around the park until sunset.

Beckham had green eyes. His eyes reminded me of an emerald or the word “aquatic.” His eyes glowed when the sun was on his face. He had a mole on his right cheek. He was much taller than me and muscular. He was funny. I considered myself really lucky to have had such a perfect first date.

Before I asked him to take me back to my dormitory, he suggested that we attend the party his fraternity hosted that night. Though I was tired, I swallowed and agreed. I guessed he wanted to show me off to the other guys, and I felt cheeky as he drove us there. Walking up to the fraternity house, I saw a lot of people outside and even more inside. I felt nervous as I followed Beckham silently. We walked up the brick porch steps and we entered the house. Beckham separated from my side, and I stopped following him when he walked to a group of guys huddled around the dining room table. Beckham didn’t acknowledge me the entire night. Abandoned, I drank a lot of liquor and left the party at eight.

He had messaged me in the morning that I needed to pay him back the gas money from the date. He asked me out on another “date” at his parent’s house for dinner at the end of month. I said yes.

The dates following after were of the same quality as what I felt at the fraternity house party. The park was the first and last date with Beckham when he made me feel special. He stopped asking me questions to get to know me. He only spoke to me when he needed me to write his papers.

After Beckham graduated, he moved to an apartment funded by his parents. Every time I visited his place, I was seen as a wall, ceiling or floor to him. One night, I stayed over to rekindle anything. Everything I tried to make me feel loved by him failed. I remember sitting alone with no pants on his leather couch in his living room staring at the box of cigarettes he usually buys on the black coffee table. I took the box of cigarettes and a bottle of liquor from his cabinet and went home.

He messaged me in the morning requesting money for the cigarettes and liquor I took. I hid the box of cigarettes away. I blocked his number and never saw Beckham again.

I sat on a chair next to the easel and picked up a hair brush lying beside one of the chair’s feet. I curled my left leg and rested my head on my knee as I brushed my damp long hair. I felt a cold sadness grow in my stomach. I looked out the bedroom window, wondering how long since I stepped outside of my apartment. The city shouldn’t see me just yet.

In my junior year of college, I picked up painting after visiting a museum for the first time. A collection of paintings by a French artist inspired me. I would spend all my free time painting, and I had been really happy with my newly discovered hobby. I loved the idea of putting up my work for others to admire. After I graduated college, I moved to the city to pursue being an artist. I saved up enough money for a car, an apartment, and supplies for painting.

A friend in the same city had come over and was astonished by my paintings. She set me up on a date with a talent manager named Grant. Seizing the opportunity for success, I agreed to have a date with him. I was confident in seeing Grant, since I had fully moved on from Beckham.

I met Grant at a bar on a Friday night. We waved to each other as I walked up to him. We stood in front of each other, both silent and nervous. He initiated the first move as he complemented how beautiful I looked that night. He opened the door for me, and we entered the bar. We ordered drinks and laughed together. We shared stories, ambitions, and goals. A spotlight was on Grant and me as the other patrons were in the darkness. I told Grant how much I had fallen in love with painting. I showed him photos of my paintings.

“If you love painting so much,” Grant said, “I would absolutely love to be your manager. Let me.”

“Yeah. Absolutely,” I repeated.

Grant had blue eyes. It reminded me so much of the sky or the beach. His eyes were like clear water and the whites were like sand. He was the same age as me. He was thin and had blond hair. His teeth were very white like pearls. He was very put together.

Grant walked me home from the bar, as we talked about our favorite artists. I listened to how Grant had become a talent manager and how many clients he had managed. I was lucky client number four. At the door step of my apartment building, we made out.

When I entered my apartment, as soon as I closed the door, I threw up on the living room floor. I cleaned the vomit and slept on the couch happily.

The following year flew by disappointingly too fast. Grant helped me secure exhibitions for my paintings and find clients who would commission me. There would be days when Grant and I wouldn’t see each other because I had been too busy with painting, and he had to work with his other clients. But in the midst of work, Grant and I saw each other when we both had free time. In the middle of May, a week before our anniversary, Grant had left me a letter taped to my front door. Grant wrote to me that he had slept with another client and was leaving me for her. In the letter, he had expressed his guilt and told me he’s dropping me as a client.

I had become severely depressed and stopped painting entirely. I stopped leaving my apartment. I only remember sleeping. When I wasn’t asleep, I laid on my bed awake, staring out the bedroom window like a hospice patient. I had slept so much that the days blended together. I stopped talking and isolated myself from the city.

Two months into the depression, a mantra would bubble up. Maybe if I die now, then my paintings would have so much worth, everyone will love me then. Everyone will love me! I cried into my pillow. I was sick in the head. I needed somebody to save me quickly.

One Sunday morning, I woke up to the door bell ringing. I wondered who it was since I had cut off contact from all my clients and my relatives’ soap business went bankrupt. I unlocked and opened the door. I was greeted by the sight of a stranger.

“Goodmorning, are these paintings for sale? They’re really beautiful,” the stranger said. He pointed to the paintings I had left out on the hallway.

One night, I had gotten sick of living in the same apartment with the paintings that reminded me of Grant. I abandoned those paintings in the hallway.

“Take all of it. Free,” I replied. I closed the door but didn’t move away from the door. I secretly hoped he would say something.

After some time waiting, I opened the door and saw the stranger had left with one painting. A twenty dollar bill sat on the ground when I looked down on the welcome mat. I sat on the couch all day waiting for him. Later that evening, the stranger knocked on my door again.

“Hello, I hope you got the money. Was that enough?” he asked.

“Did you like it?”

“It’s gorgeous. I hung it in my living room.”

“I made it,” I said with a blank face.

“It belongs in a museum,” he said. I almost choked.

“Thanks.”

“I’m Marshall. I moved in a day ago. Do you want to have dinner sometime?”

We had agreed to have dinner at his place tomorrow night. Tomorrow had rolled around and I stood in front of his apartment door. My stomach felt twisted, and my armpits were sweaty. I rang the door bell, and Marshall opened the door. He let me in and gave me a tour of his place.

“There’s not a lot of furniture, since I just moved in recently.”

Marshall had plastic, foldable chairs and table. I sat on one of the plastic chairs and we talked. I hadn’t had a conversation with anybody in so long until Marshall had come into my life to free me from my depression. We ate home-cooked spaghetti and drank red wine.

Marshall moved to the city after a school nearby had offered him a job. He taught physics and dreamed of winning a Nobel Prize since he was twelve. He grew up on a farm and was the youngest child out of eight siblings. When he was in high school, he had won first place at the science fair every year for five straight years. He loved listening to jazz and bragged about how he had once met Ella Fitzgerald when he was a kid. I didn’t believe him one bit, but his enthusiasm as he talked was charming.

He had a lot of questions about my paintings. I looked behind me and saw my painting hanging on the living room wall. Staring at the painting, I felt indifferent. I no longer associated that painting with anyone. After dinner, we walked to my apartment. I showed Marshall all my paintings. Each painting I had shown him, he keenly observed.

We went back to his apartment and continued to talk. We sat on the couch and talked until midnight. I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up in the morning on the same couch. I felt the soft blanket on me. Across the couch, the rest of the paintings I had left in the hallway were brought in, leaning against each other. Marshall walked out his room wearing a white button down and black pants, tying his tie.

        “Goodmorning,” I said.

        “Any plans today? You can stay here, if you want. I’ll be back at three.”

        Marshall and I went out to see a movie later that night. We went to his doctor's appointment on Wednesday. We went to the aquarium on Thursday. We went to a restaurant on Friday. We unpacked and set up his television on Saturday. We graded his students’ papers on Sunday.

Since Tuesday, I had slept over at Marshall’s place. I stayed at his place for a week, then two weeks, which then turned into a month. I didn’t want to leave Marshall’s side. At the start of September, I moved in with Marshall. I sold most of my furniture and paintings from my apartment. I occupied the right side of his king size bed.

        One evening at the end of September, Marshall had helped me transport some paintings I planned to show to an investor the week after. I told Marshall a horrible joke on the ride home.

        “If I died now, you’ll be a millionaire with how much these people will love my paintings.” Marshall didn’t respond to me as he drove. After a suffocating amount of silence, he spoke.

        “Take it back.”

        “I’m sorry. I take what I said back.”

        “I don’t want you to die.”

        “I’m not going to die, Marshall.”

        I stained the moment and had made Marshall worry. When we got back to our apartment, Marshall didn’t leave my side. We fell asleep that night without eating dinner. We were satiated with each other’s presence.

When we woke up in the morning, we stayed in bed and admired each other. I was bewitched by Marshall’s brown eyes. The color reminded me of a candle light or a warm, fuzzy, film of a camera. He loved me so much that I felt indebted to him for loving me. He was glad, though. Underneath the covers, we were in love.

        On October twenty-four, Marshall proposed to me. I said yes. We were staying at a cabin in the snowy-mountains at that time. We had hiked up a trail, and, while I was looking out into the distance, he got down on one knee. We went back to the cabin and danced all night until we passed out in each other’s arms.

        When we came back to the city, Marshall’s doctor appointments became more frequent. After the third visit in one month, he confessed to me of his heart illness after I had confronted him about it one night. Marshall had a weak heart and the doctor said it was worsening fast. The condition was hereditary from his father. I sobbed in Marshall’s arms. Through his reassuring words he tried to say, I couldn’t stop weeping. We looked at each other, my tears streamed down my cheeks while he smiled at me.

“Why are you smiling?” I whispered.

“Because you love me so much.”

“Yeah. I love you. I don’t want you to die.”

The morning after didn’t feel real when I woke up. Marshall laid beside me as he slept. He was beautiful. I fell back asleep until I woke up to Marshall gone from the bed and to the smell of breakfast cooking.

The weeks after were full of anxiety. Every time I laid my eyes on Marshall, I feared it would be the last time I saw him breathing. In the mornings I woke up next to him, I feared I was the only one alive in our bed. Marshall kept going to work and writing his thesis. The world kept spinning. Time kept pursuing its course. I wanted to stop time and be with Marshall. On some days, I accompanied him when he drove to work. I slept in the car until he came back at three. I didn’t want to leave him because I didn't want him to leave me. I had given up everything to be with him. I asked him if he should quit his job. He told me he needed to keep working because he loved to teach. I couldn’t fight him on that.

On October thirty-first, Marshall and I attended his friends’ halloween party. The morning after, Marshall was hospitalized because he threw up blood in his sleep and almost choked to death. I lost my mind in the waiting room. He had to stay for three weeks because his conditions were worsening. I slept in a chair next to his hospital bed, holding his hand. When he rested, I watched him. One wrong whine and I was calling for the nurses.

I didn’t speak to the doctors much. When they stood in the room talking, I tuned everything out that wasn't an improvement to Marshall’s health. The subconscious coping started when the doctors said only horrible news so often I started to grow nauseous whenever I saw their faces. I buckled every time.

I prayed to God for the first time in my life. When Marshall was asleep one night, I was coming back from the rest room when I saw a sign pointing towards an empty small chapel. I walked in and down a path in between the wooden pews. I sat in the row second to the front. I looked at the giant cross on the wall in front of me. I begged for God to rewrite reality, one where Marshall was fully healed.

“If possible, take all the pain from Marshall and give it to me. I can take it,” I whispered. I stayed in a position of closed eyes and clasped hands for a while. I felt the cold air of the room and let the faint noise of the AC accompany me.

I came back to my resting Marshall and fell asleep on the chair next to him.

When he was discharged in the morning, we stopped at our favorite bagel shop and took home our orders. We ate on the couch and watched movies until mid-afternoon. The sky outside the window was bright white, a precursor to the sunset. Marshall hated how early night came to be during the fall to winter months.

As I had stood by the kitchen landline ordering pizza, Marshall took out my easel and an empty canvas from the closet. He set them up and he moved around getting ready to paint.

“Pizza will be here in forty,” I said, hanging up the call.

I walked behind Marshall and sat on the couch watching him eagerly. He squeezed a tube of red oil paint onto a palette until a fat glob came out. He picked up a paint brush, its bristles stiff. He swiped the bristles on the red dollop and painted a single, red stroke in the middle of the canvas.

“This is my first time doing this.”

“I know.” I laughed.

Marshall quickly abandoned the painting and put away the materials he had brought out. I told him to leave the canvas and the easel.

We ate pizza that night and I fell asleep on the couch. I woke up on our bed an hour later, my left arm wrapped around his torso. He was awake as well.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I am okay,” Marshall whispered back.

“Thank you for moving me to the bed.”

“I was thinking of having our wedding tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“I forgot about our wedding.”

“Me too.”

“It feels like we’ve already been married.”

“I know.”

“Can we elope right now?”

“Tomorrow. I’m tired.”

“I’m tired of everything. I’m tired for you.”

“Where should we elope?”

“The hospital chapel. I need God to be there. God owes me something.”

“Sure.”

“Marshall.”

“Yes?”

“I think you saved my life,”

“I think you saved my life, too.”

        I placed the right side of my head against Marshall’s chest, listening to his heart beat. I closed my eyes. I adored the warmth our bodies made. Since I didn’t want to sleep yet, I tried to keep talking to Marshall without anything proper to say.

        “Marshall.”

        “Mmm?”

        “I am glad.”

        “Mmm.”

        “Marshall.”

        “Mmm?”

        “I am really happy.”

        I kept saying Marshall’s name repeatedly. My body slid off his chest and I laid with my arms wrapped around his right arm. I love Marshall and he loves me. I was satisfied and eternally grateful for every time I got to sleep with him.

        He had a weak heart but I believed his heart was too loving. We slept next to each other that night. Only I was to wake up in the morning. When I awakened, I hugged him tighter and readjusted. I sat up and placed my left ear against his chest, wanting to listen to his heart beat. Not a single thump from his heart I heard.

        “Marshall,” I whispered, “do you want breakfast? I’ll make anything you want.” I rested my chin on his chest, waiting for his closed eyelids to open, waiting for his arms to rise and wrap around my torso.

        “I can run to the bagel place we love for you if you’re not feeling well. Doesn't that sound nice, Marshall?”

        What a heavy sleeper. I laid down and curled up right beside him, I could smell his soothing, light scent. I fell back asleep easily. When I woke up, I set my chin on his chest again, rocking my head left to right. I wanted Marshall to see his adorable fiancè right in front of him. Waiting for him to wake up, I examined his facial structures. I could only appreciate how beautiful he was. His lips, nose, cheeks, and eyebrows were perfect. I was eagerly anticipating for his eyelids to open and reveal his beautiful, brown eyes to me.

I got up from my side of our bed. Everything started to look increasingly blurry with each step. I walked around the bed to the hallway. One hiccup turned into another until it repeated. I sobbed while walking towards the kitchen and my tears intensified as I passed by Marshall’s abandoned canvas. I dialed the funeral home and stood in front of the kitchen sink and window. Across the street from where I stood, into the window of another apartment, I saw a mother, father, and two children eating breakfast around a dining table. Marshall’s deceased body was taken away and I was left alone.

        The hairbrush slipped from my hand and fell on the floor. My right arm stuck frozen in the air, I sat still in the chair as I reminisced about Marshall. I blinked slowly, and I could feel my heart beat. I brought my right hand in front of my eyes, unblurring my gaze to focus on my silver wedding ring. I love Marshall because he loves me.