In the mirror my face has fine lines...
In the mirror my face has fine lines around the eyes, I didn't moisturize today. Today my eyes look like mine, sometimes they look like his to me. I see so many brown eyes I have to double check that mine are still blue-green. Army green and sapphire blue usually. A brown dot in one eye is the solitary daily reminder of that day. I can tell my eyes have not changed to brown with that tiny color swatch...
His face is at a moment of happiness and calm triumph. A moment of boyish innocence, the storms are over. We did what they wanted. We did what they expected. His plot won our Freedom from them! I was about to answer that door and laughingly hug him, "I was in the shower" or "Sorry, I was in the back packing." I wondered how either of us got tangled up with any of them? Kids that lay Golden Eggs get noticed. It feels good to get noticed. Kids fight for that notice. Adults fight for that notice. I was shy, uncomfortable with attention. The attention from everyone was not what I wanted. I didn't hate it but I did not crave it either. That fit his own plans. It had been about "us" at some point, the point I walked away from the best Sorority recruitment offers any University Freshman could get. Sorority's plan Homecoming years in advance. They work at recruiting any woman likely to win Homecoming Queen. If you win University Homecoming Queen, you casually stroll into all sorts of jobs...News Anchor, Reporter, Weather girl, Business Exec. At least back then it meant that. I was surprised when someone mentioned that.
It's old fashioned for spouses not to have a competing career. I painted and drew and Art doesn't compete. The man I was leaving was in Art School. I loved him. It's a lie to say otherwise. He got swamped with class projects, I'd finish a few for him. The Professor figured us out for sure, his drawing style was Michaelangelo mine was Caravaggio. What didn't work between us was the chaos. I can't work in chaos. He wouldn't keep anything orderly. We slept all day and stayed up all night playing video games. My family donated the house, the car, his Art school tuition, paid the bills, took us out to eat. I was punished in one major way...my clothing allowance was cut off & they stopped sending me amazing hand-me-downs.
Why'd I even love a methodical man who got up in the morning whether he wanted to or not? Women adapt. Men rarely do. He stood there on the porch growing annoyed? Frustrated? Angry? Did he say afterward that he had a premonition? He rang the doorbell again.
Inside the house...
He asked me about the man that drove up as he was leaving for his appointment. He was suspicious of him. He was like that whenever things were good between us. A touch possesive, a touch over-protective, anticipating any possible glitch in his intended course. Maybe that's why they wanted me out of his life. He hadn't intended to be running late for that appointment. But he saw the man getting out of his car. I didn't know, I assumed a workman or visitor for the neighbor. He was gone maybe ten minutes when the door opened seemingly pushed by the wind. I thought he had already come back or left something behind. I raced to the partially opened door flung it open expecting him on the other side. And was greeted by the face of an unexpected intruder. I backed up "What are you doing in my house?!"
Short of owning a handgun, there was not much I could have done differently to change the outcome. I ran naked for the back door. He grabbed me by the waist steps out the door and dragged me back in the house. He was done with me when the doorbell rang. He had his pistol pressed against my temple. He had tried to kill me with a stake and a dull knife. I don't remember it sticking out of my eye. But I removed it later. The stake would have killed me but it lodged into my orbital bone sticking there. Adrenaline kicked in and I held my hand around the stake keeping him from pulling it out and stabbing me again.
I was scared when the pistol touched my temple but I didn't really want to be alive after everything he did to me. I figured the eye was lost. I had big sapphire blue-green limpid almond eyes nobody had seen the like of in my town. Women got angry at me for wearing too much eye-make-up when I'd put a touch of eyeshadow & mascara on. It's a more common eye-shape & size in the British Isles. Nobody else in my family has them. I could not imagine him even wanting to look at me after that. It's just how you think in moments like that. I did due diligence trying to save my own life, nobody could accuse me of seeking suicide. But the stake through the eye ended my easy happy loved life. He tried to saw off my hand with the dull knife. Everything he did was an attempt to remove the LIFE I was born with. I didn't have many bad lives with those eyes & those hands. I got asked out by phenomenal men without trying that much, marriage proposals followed. People open doors. Old women smile. Whether I was rich or poor people smiled at me. The Artist adored me. You don't really worry about love. If you feel shy, you pop out a sketch pad and draw someone. Death started looking like an improvement.
Then the doorbell rang. It was his life at stake then with mine to follow.
His face is at a moment of happiness and calm triumph. A moment of boyish innocence, the storms are over. We did what they wanted. We did what they expected. His plot won our Freedom from them! I was about to answer that door and laughingly hug him, "I was in the shower" or "Sorry, I was in the back packing." I wondered how either of us got tangled up with any of them? Kids that lay Golden Eggs get noticed. It feels good to get noticed. Kids fight for that notice. Adults fight for that notice. I was shy, uncomfortable with attention. The attention from everyone was not what I wanted. I didn't hate it but I did not crave it either. That fit his own plans. It had been about "us" at some point, the point I walked away from the best Sorority recruitment offers any University Freshman could get. Sorority's plan Homecoming years in advance. They work at recruiting any woman likely to win Homecoming Queen. If you win University Homecoming Queen, you casually stroll into all sorts of jobs...News Anchor, Reporter, Weather girl, Business Exec. At least back then it meant that. I was surprised when someone mentioned that.
It's old fashioned for spouses not to have a competing career. I painted and drew and Art doesn't compete. The man I was leaving was in Art School. I loved him. It's a lie to say otherwise. He got swamped with class projects, I'd finish a few for him. The Professor figured us out for sure, his drawing style was Michaelangelo mine was Caravaggio. What didn't work between us was the chaos. I can't work in chaos. He wouldn't keep anything orderly. We slept all day and stayed up all night playing video games. My family donated the house, the car, his Art school tuition, paid the bills, took us out to eat. I was punished in one major way...my clothing allowance was cut off & they stopped sending me amazing hand-me-downs.
Why'd I even love a methodical man who got up in the morning whether he wanted to or not? Women adapt. Men rarely do. He stood there on the porch growing annoyed? Frustrated? Angry? Did he say afterward that he had a premonition? He rang the doorbell again.
Inside the house...
He asked me about the man that drove up as he was leaving for his appointment. He was suspicious of him. He was like that whenever things were good between us. A touch possesive, a touch over-protective, anticipating any possible glitch in his intended course. Maybe that's why they wanted me out of his life. He hadn't intended to be running late for that appointment. But he saw the man getting out of his car. I didn't know, I assumed a workman or visitor for the neighbor. He was gone maybe ten minutes when the door opened seemingly pushed by the wind. I thought he had already come back or left something behind. I raced to the partially opened door flung it open expecting him on the other side. And was greeted by the face of an unexpected intruder. I backed up "What are you doing in my house?!"
Short of owning a handgun, there was not much I could have done differently to change the outcome. I ran naked for the back door. He grabbed me by the waist steps out the door and dragged me back in the house. He was done with me when the doorbell rang. He had his pistol pressed against my temple. He had tried to kill me with a stake and a dull knife. I don't remember it sticking out of my eye. But I removed it later. The stake would have killed me but it lodged into my orbital bone sticking there. Adrenaline kicked in and I held my hand around the stake keeping him from pulling it out and stabbing me again.
I was scared when the pistol touched my temple but I didn't really want to be alive after everything he did to me. I figured the eye was lost. I had big sapphire blue-green limpid almond eyes nobody had seen the like of in my town. Women got angry at me for wearing too much eye-make-up when I'd put a touch of eyeshadow & mascara on. It's a more common eye-shape & size in the British Isles. Nobody else in my family has them. I could not imagine him even wanting to look at me after that. It's just how you think in moments like that. I did due diligence trying to save my own life, nobody could accuse me of seeking suicide. But the stake through the eye ended my easy happy loved life. He tried to saw off my hand with the dull knife. Everything he did was an attempt to remove the LIFE I was born with. I didn't have many bad lives with those eyes & those hands. I got asked out by phenomenal men without trying that much, marriage proposals followed. People open doors. Old women smile. Whether I was rich or poor people smiled at me. The Artist adored me. You don't really worry about love. If you feel shy, you pop out a sketch pad and draw someone. Death started looking like an improvement.
Then the doorbell rang. It was his life at stake then with mine to follow.