Window To The Soul

Chapter 1

Eyes are the window to the soul.

At least, that's what they say.

And it's true, for me then.

For as long as I live, I've had this thing with eyes. They spoke to me. And not just in a way that I could read the emotion behind them, I could read whole stories behind them.

Big, small, brown, blue, they all hide a story, and no one could keep me from seeing it.

This was a reason I was very picky with choosing my friends when I was younger. I knew exactly what kind of person they were, just by looking at them. Most of the kids, I avoided, and the one's I was interested in, avoided me.

I grew up having few, but very good friends. The kind of friends who you can trust, always. That was a good thing about my ''superpower'', I knew exactly who was a good person.

I never liked my own eyes, though. Too brown and common. Brown eyes were boring, in my opinion.

Until that one afternoon.

''Mom, would you leave me alone for just one day? I'm fine, okay? The papers are signed, Kacey is completely out of my life and you seem to care more than me.''

I heard my mother sigh and then continued babbling through the phone. I squeezed the phone between my shoulder and ear while I grabbed my keys and sunglasses. I was in a hurry and the last thing I needed now was my mom caring too much.

''But sweetie, this is a difficult time for you. A divorce is not just anything. I just never thought she would do that, we all trusted her!''

''Well, we both know how that turned out.''

After six years of marriage with my high school girlfriend, Kacey, I caught her stealing money out of my secret safe in my drawer. Even after nine years of dating, a marriage and having a baby nine months after I failed to see she wasn't one I could trust.

I kicked her out of the house, she let our child, Austin, stay with me and in exchange I owed her a lot of money. If you look at it now, not such a fair deal. She never loved Austin like I loved him since I held him in my arms for the first time.

So here I am, in a house too big for myself, with too many empty spots from where was once furniture, rushing to pick up the only little human that keeps my happy.

''Sorry mom, gotta pick up Austin now, bye!'' I ended the phone call rushed. I checked to see if I had everything with me and sprinted out of the door.

On the playground, I casually scanned through the crowd of parents, mostly looking at their eyes, a habit I learned myself. It wasn't much use on this sunny day, because most of them wore sunglasses, like me. Kacey loved to wear sunglasses and now I realize that I didn't even see her eyes most of the time. That should explain it.

But even the sunglasses couldn't hide all, with some of them I didn't even have to try to read their story.

Rich and too spoiled by her daddy. Arrogant. Probably a lot of friends like Kacey.

Happy and social. Getting the best out of the day. A little naïve.

Awkward but nice. One good friend. Smart. Probably a good job that pays well.

From my usual place against the big tree in the right corner of the playground I had a clear view of everyone. The people weren't new, I saw them every day. Having looked at every person, attention wandered to the big clock on the school to check the time until school ended, and Austin would come out the door.

Until I saw something that caught my attention.

Actually, two something's.

A pair of the most beautiful brown eyes looked the same way, at the big clock. They were big, almost curious, if they wanted to catch every detail of this day. Her big lashes were makeup free, her whole face actually, except a light pink coat on her lips that made them look even fuller than they already were.

Suddenly, I didn't find brown eyes that boring anymore.