Monday, March 24  

Eye

Vic has her granny's eyes. Mind you, her granny lives in northern Ontario and is still using her eyes to paint landscapes and dig vegetable gardens so maybe she has her great-granny's eyes instead. Her great granny died the month before Vic was born.

eye: noun 1. an organ of vision. 2. the most intensely active central part. verb 1. to look at attentively or carefully.

Rob comes over to her apartment and sits on her couch and says "I need you to come back. I need this."

He does not say "I need you" but rather "this" which is what puts Vic on the defensive. She's sat through this particular song and dance before. This is what gets her thinking, not about Rob, but about William. The one who came before. And that's always the more devastating.

Even as Rob is sitting two feet from her, two cushions away on the couch they fucked on over and over when things were still cool between them, even now, she isn't looking at him. She isn't really watching him pick a thread out of his denimed knee. She doesn't see his red blush creeping or notice his pain, assuming there is any. She is remembering someone else.

A year ago, almost now, she fell hard for the memory of William, her first love. And she'd called him late one night, sobbing with desire to have and to hold that much innocence again.

He'd answered the phone, guardedly, recognizing her number. He spoke to her like a lion would speak to it's tamer after one too many fire hoops. Fiercely, but with reserve. Vic pled her case. William said, "I can’t help you with this, Vic. You ruined me." And Vic knew that was true and wondered why she called knowing that. But still, she convinced him to come over and see her, see her sudden clutching need for himself. She remembered William as the easy to convince type.

And they sat on this couch too. He was just where Rob is now, but they were opposite.

His eyes were blue against his pale skin and she had to keep a careful distance between her eyes and his. She is glad his eyes weren't deep and brown because those kinds of eyes show too much emotion. Blue has a casual, surface way of making you feel just looked at, without being inspected.

Smoking unsteadily, she told William she wanted him to come back. That she needed this. Not him, this.

But he told her, as she is telling Rob now, that there are a hundred good reasons why they split. None of which, Vic has forgotten.

The way William drank, viciously, hurtfully. The way he worked late into the morning and made her lonely. The way he missed appointments and bought stupid things without asking her. The way he once flung a peppermill in her general direction, smashing it against the wall, scattering little black peppercorns across the hardwood floor leaving her with the unexpected reminder of that awful night whenever she moved the furniture around for the next year after he’d left.

Layered on top of all that, or maybe under it, are the good things though and that's what kept her fucked up over him for so, so, so long. The way he made her happy. The way they leaned against each other and felt friendly, safe and easy. The way they chose paint chips together and moved into 3 different apartments together. The way he always did the right thing in the end. The way he spoke to her the night they finally ended their relationship. He took her hands in his and led her to the bed. He said "No one will ever love you quite like this. I can't imagine it. Because it would tear them apart."

His eyes were full of tears and pain and she felt nothing, distant, separated already. She wanted to know why he was making her do this, why he had pushed her to this extreme. But she didn't ask him. She just closed her eyes and went to sleep, not waiting for the next day, but considering it over right then and there.

Trouble is, that it wasn't over then. It wasn't over for several years after. But it is over now.

She knows for sure, because Rob is on the verge of walking out, angry at her lack of response, and she doesn't care.

Vic suddenly feels beyond everything that went before. 10 years ago, 5, 1. She is beyond that kind of love, completely. She eyes it circumspectly.