My Lovers’ Eyes Are Different Each Time

A short story written by Inaki “Ikkannii” Demotica

        I woke up underneath the covers of my bed. Even after sleeping for fourteen hours straight, night was still roaming outside the window: A faint glowing aura from the lights down the street leaked into my dark bedroom, vaguely illuminating the room to let me see the outlines of everything.

        Disappointed that I had already woken up, I didn’t want to do anything. What do I do now? What would a person awake this late at night do? I’ve had no job or goals to drive me lately.

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

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

        Standing up and walking out into the hallway, I followed the orange hue of the kitchen light I had left turned on overnight. I stood in front of the kitchen sink and window, witnessing no light from the apartment windows across the street. I may be the only one awake in the city. Feeling chilly and thirsty, I stood there before opening the fridge and taking out a slice of pizza and an open beer. I swear the pizza was colder than the beer as I bit into the pizza.

Smelling a pungent odor from my arm pits, I abandoned the pizza crust on the counter as I took the beer with me. Beelining towards the bathroom, I yanked the towel hanging 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 hardwood floor, still, colder than the beer.

I finished drinking the beer before I deserted it by the bathroom’s door frame. The bathroom was dark as 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.

After I stripped my clothes off, I 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.

Amidst the candlelight, I turned the water off and stepped out of the shower. I dried off by gliding a towel all over my body. I sauntered out of the bathroom naked, leaving my clothes and towel bundled up on the bathroom floor

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

I entered my bedroom, dark but with a subtle radiance of an amber light from the hallway. My room was a mess: Aside from the pile of things on my bed, more were scattered all over the bedroom. I sighed while I stood in front of my full-length wall mirror in the corner of the bedroom. Staring 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 looked at myself, at my body, at her, and back at myself. I grinned at her, and she grinned back.

Focusing on the reflection of my room and my things behind me, I concentrated on three stacks of soap loaves on top of a cloth sitting on my desk. My relatives had an artisanal soap business, and they often sent me loaves every three months.

In the middle of the room, the back of an easel stood: White rags covered in paint blotches littered below it. Because the canvas on the easel faced away from me, I only saw wood and staples of the canvas stretcher at the back.

Sick of the mess in my room, I moved around the room and bent down to collect clothes, unopened mail, and empty shopping bags and boxes from the floor. In a frenzy, I opened my closet door to a stuffy scene and dumped out everything from my arms. I pushed into the mess of the closet recklessly making more space. Then, I turned around to the canvas a few feet away facing me: A single red brush stroke existed on the surrounding large white expanse of the canvas. I stormed towards the easel, picked up the canvas by its side, and I turned around to throw it into the closet with all my strength. The canvas hit a shelf above before landing below on a pile of things. A box on the top shelf fell from its great height and spilled all of its contents out on the floor.

The anger eventually subsided; instead, I grew curious of what had poured out of the box, but It had been so long that I didn’t recognize anything. I went down on my knees and picked through the things: A box of cigarettes caught my eyes, and I picked it up. Beckham, I remembered that the brand on the box of cigarettes was a favorite of my first boyfriend.

        I met Beckham when we were 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. Initially, I didn’t want to date Beckham, but my college friends pressured me to: They pointed out how Beckham would “selflessly” skip the weekend parties at the fraternity house to visit me at my job. He always appeared in the sections I served, and sat up to hours at his table alone. Waiting and trying to squeeze out as much conversation with me every time I went to his table to serve him.

        One evening, 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. Beckham brought me chocolates in a heart-shaped box. It was hot that day, but we sat on a blanket under the tree shade. We walked and talked around the park until sunset.

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

        Before I asked him to take me back to my dormitory, he suggested that we attend a party his fraternity hosted that night. Though I was tired, I swallowed it down and agreed. I had guessed he wanted me off to his friends there, so I felt cheeky sitting in the passenger seat.

        Walking up to his fraternity house, I saw a lot of people outside and even more inside. Nervously, I followed Beckham silently up the brick porch steps, and we entered the house. Beckham separated my side, and I stopped following him when he strode towards a group of guys huddled around the dining room table. Beckham didn’t acknowledge me the entire night. Abandoned, I drank my weight in liquor and left the party at eight.

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

        The dates following after were of the same quality as what I felt at the fraternity house party. The date at the park was the first and last date I had 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 to write his papers for him.

        After Beckham graduated, he moved to an apartment funded by his parents. Every time I had visited his place, I was treated as his wall, ceiling, or floor. I stayed over one night in an attempt to rekindle anything, but everything I tried to make myself feel loved by him failed. I remember sitting alone in his living room with no pants on. When I noticed his usual brand of cigarettes on the black coffee table, I got up from his black leather couch and took his cigarettes and a bottle of liquor before heading home.

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

        Blinking back to the present, I left the cigarettes on the spot where I picked them. 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, brushing my damp, long hair. I felt a cold sadness grow in my stomach as I wondered how long since I had stepped outside of my apartment. The city shouldn’t see me just yet.

        I turned my head to the back of the easel. I recollected why I had started to paint.

        In my junior year of college, I picked up painting after visiting a museum for the first time: A collection of paintings by Claude Monet inspired me. Since then, I began spending all my free time painting, and I had been really happy with my newly discovered hobby at the time. Putting up my work for others to admire is an idea I loved.

        After I had graduated college, I moved to the city to pursue painting. I saved up enough money for a car, an apartment, and supplies for painting.

        A close peer had come over one time and was astonished by paintings. Encouraging me, 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 to meet Grant, since I had fully moved on from Beckham.

        I met Grant at a bar on Friday night. We waved to each other when I walked up to him. Both quiet and nervous, we stood in front of each other. He initiated the first move: He complemented how beautiful I looked that night. When we entered the bar, he opened the door for me. We ordered drinks and laughed together; we shared stories, ambitions, and goals. An imaginary 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 as I showed him photos of my recent creations.

        “If you love painting so much,” Grant said, “I would absolutely love to manage all of this and all of you. Let me.”

        “Yeah. Absolutely,” I repeated.

        Grant had blue eyes; it prompted me to think about the sky or the ocean: His eyes were like clear water and his scleras were like sand. His teeth were very white like pearls. He was the same age as me. He was thin, he had blond hair, and he was very put together.

        Grant walked me home from the bar, continuing our conversation 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 seven. 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. After I cleaned the vomit, I slept on the couch happily.

        The following year flew by disappointingly 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. In the midst of work, Grant and I would always see each other when we both had free time.

        In the middle of May, a week before our anniversary, Grant left me a letter taped to my front door. He wrote to me that he had slept with another client and was leaving me for her; he had expressed his guilt and told me he was terminating our clientship.

        I had become severely depressed and halted painting entirely. Since I had 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 as I isolated myself.

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

        One Sunday morning, I woke up to the door bell ringing. I wondered who was at my door, since I had cut off contact from everyone. When I unlocked and opened the door, I was greeted by the presence of a stranger.

        “Goodmorning, are these paintings for sale?” said the stranger, “They’re really beautiful.” He pointed to the paintings I had left out on the hallway from one of my fits: A few nights earlier, I had gotten sick of living in the same apartment with paintings that reminded me of Grant.

        “Take all of it. Free,” I replied.

I closed the door in his face, but I didn’t move away from the door. Really, I was secretly hoping he would say something. After some time waiting, I opened the door and saw the stranger had left with one painting, leaving a twenty dollar bill in his wake. I waited, from the couch, for him to knock on my door again later that evening.

“Hello, was the money I left 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.

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

“Thanks.”

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

We had agreed to have dinner at his place tomorrow night. When tomorrow rolled around, I stood in front of his apartment door, my stomach felt twisted. I rang the door bell, and Marshall opened the door. Oh, my God, he was beautiful! I bit the insides of my cheeks. 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.”

In his apartment, a gray couch sat to my right against the wall. A flatscreen TV in a box unopened rested across the couch. In front of me were a plastic table and plastic foldable chairs.

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 entered in 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, since he was twelve, dreamed of winning a Nobel Prize. 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 and his father loved listening to jazz.

As I eagerly listened to Marshall, his enthusiasm charmed me. He had a lot of questions about my paintings. At one point, I looked behind me and saw my painting hanging on the living room wall. I felt indifferent towards the painting: I no longer associated that painting with anyone.

We moved our conversation to his couch after dinner. We were at it until midnight, when I fell asleep on the couch.

In the morning, I woke up on the same couch in the morning with a 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 next to the TV box. Marshall, tying his tie,  walked out of his room wearing a white button down and black paints.

“Goodmorning,” I said.

“Any plans today? If you want, you can stay here. I’ll be back at three in the afternoon.”

Marshall and I had gone 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.

I had been sleeping over at Marshall’s place since Tuesday. 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 helped me transport some paintings I had planned to show to an investor the following week. I told Marshall a horrible joke on the ride home.

“If I die now, you’ll be a millionaire from my paintings. Haha.” 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 back what I said.”

“I don’t want you to die.”

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

Staining the moment, I had made him worried. When we got back to our apartment, Marshall didn’t leave my side once. We fell asleep that night without eating dinner, but we were satisfied with each other’s presence.

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

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

When we returned 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 when I had confronted him about it one night. Marshall had a weak heart, a condition hereditary from his father, and the doctor said it was worsening fast. I sobbed in Marshall’s arms; through his reassuring words he tried to say, I couldn’t stop weeping. We stared at each other, my tears streamed down my cheeks while he warmly 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 disappearing from the bed and to the smell of breakfast cooking from the kitchen.

The weeks after were anxiety-ridden. Every time I woke up next to Marshall, I agonized in fear I would be the only one alive in our bed. Through all the noise, he kept going to work and writing his thesis. The world kept spinning and time kept pursuing its course. I dropped everything to be with him. 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. One time, I had asked him if he should quit his job. He told me he needed to keep working because he loved to leave; it was his passion, and 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 at the hospital for three weeks because his conditions were worsening. I slept on a chair next to his hospital bed, holding his hand. When he rested, I watched him: One wrong whine from him, and I was roaring for the nurses.

I didn’t speak to the doctors much. When they stood in the room talking, I tuned out everything 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 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 came across an empty small chapel. I walked in and down a path in between the wooden pews, and I sat in the row second to the front. Looking at the giant cross mounted 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 prayed. I stayed in a position of closed eyes and clasped hands for a while, feeling the cold air of the chapel and letting 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 by on our way home at our favorite bagel shop. We took home our orders and ate on the couch, as we watched movies until mid-afternoon. The sky outside the window turned 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, and he set them up as 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 down on the couch, watching him eagerly. He squeezed a tube of red oil pain onto a palette until a flat glob came out. He picked up a paint brush, its bristles stiff, and he swiped the brush 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, but I told him to leave the canvas and the easel. We ate pizza that night on the couch until I fell asleep. An hour later, I woke up on our bed, an arm wrapped around his torso. I looked up to his face and noticed he was awake.

“Are you okay?” I whispered.

“I’m okay,” Marshall whispered back.

“Thank you for moving me back 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 been married already.”

“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 a side of my head against Marshall’s chest, listening to his heart beat. I closed my eyes as I enjoyed the warmth our bodies made together. Because I didn’t want to sleep yet, I tried to keep talking to Marshall, but I didn't have anything proper to say.

“Marshall.”

“Mmm?”

“I am glad.”

“Mmm.”

“Marshall.”

“Mmm?”

“I am really happy.”

I kept repeating Marshall’s name. My body slid off his chest, and I laid beside him, my arms warped around his arm. I love Marshall and he loves me. I was fulfilled and eternally grateful for every time I had gotten 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, though. When I awakened, I hugged him tighter and readjusted. I sat up and placed my 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 you 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, embracing me.

“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 thought. I laid down curled up right beside him, I could smell his soothing, light scent. I fell back asleep easily. When I woke up again, I sat my chin on his chest again, rocking my head left to right. I wanted Marshall to see his adorable fiancé 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 his eyelids to open and reveal his beautiful, brown eyes to me.

After a while of laying beside Marshall, I got up from my side of our bed. Everything started to look increasingly blurry with each step towards the kitchen; one hiccup turned into another until it repeated. I broke down sobbing while walking towards the kitchen landline, and my tears intensified as I passed by Marshall’s discarded canvas. Dialing the funeral home, I 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.

        As I reminisced about Marshall, I lost grip on the hairbrush I held from my hand and the brush fell on the floor. My right arm still stuck frozen in the air, I sat frozen on the chair as I recollected the memories I had with Marshall. I blinked slowly as I could feel my heart beat faster. I brought my right hand in front of my eyes, unblurring my gaze to focus on my silver ring. I breathed deeply and slowly. I love Marshall because he loves me.