I twiddled my thumbs around each other and visioned them as the moon and earth orbiting around each other, but eventually I got bored with the all too consistent spinning in circles to come to the same ends and beginnings because they are both one in the same. I let my thumbs get closer and closer until they brushed and the moon and Earth collided. I didn't know which thumb played what role but I didn't care because either way humanity would vanish and the debris of millions of extinct species of life would drift for eternity upon eternity. Whether I wanted this to actually happen is still a question that has not been converted to an answer. This may be because I'm not quite sure.
Demi sits across from me in the lonely diner, her straight posture reminds me of the crease between my lips and her scowl is curved down in a frown like the arch of my spine because in a way I feel like it's sad too. The only noise is the coffee maker because we told the waitress we were all done eating and drinking for now. The table has been cleared of the chicken and mashed potatoes on her side and the bowl of frosted flakes with extra milk on mine. Her glass of water and my glass of expresso are much like us, distant. Of course I care that we're distant. I feel bad though because I promised her forever but it won't be forever because life is unfair and forever would give us enough time to morph into our best selves. I promised her I would touch her like lovers do but I can hardly look at her more than a few minutes at a time because she stops my world and if we stop the world I stop breathing because the motion of the world keeps me concentrating. But it's the movement of her lips as they curl up like the tips of her hair when she smiles that memorise me into a moment of stillness. She's so beautiful and perfect and the glint in her eye on a Sunday evening makes me hold my breathe in a hallelujah as she thanks god for all the life she has today. It's all this beauty in which I can't breathe and can't fathom a love so true. That's why we're a table apart but in my cup's point of view we are a world apart because she's at one edge of the earth and I'm at the other. This artificial wood is all they -all we- know.
"What are you thinking", Demi asks, her face a blank slate and her eyes cold.
I look up from my staring contest with the gum under the table that still has a hint of spearmint to it and give that round to him. I say him because I used to recognise people by smell and men are more likely to chew spearmint than woman. Woman like peppermint, it smells like Christmas and artificial happiness. "I think this feels like the beginning of a slow and painful end".
"At least I'm not the only one". The words come out like they were all cut out of different magazines. The sentence is a piece of clip art that does not fit on a page. Her lips don't wrap around the sounds because none of the sounds are hers and they don't wrap around each other because they all belong to sizes and fonts that don't match their neighbours.
"Is that it?", I ask. I sit upward with my elbows propped on the table and my frowned spine in a different arch. "That's all you have to say? You drag me hear where it's cold and it's dim and lonely? I'm already cold, I'm already dim, and I'm already lonely so why am I sitting in a diner with my girlfriend who seems like she'd prefer that singular would separate in two?" I had not realised I was shouting until the waitresses head appeared over the swinging doors to the kitchen.
"Why are you yelling", she demands in a low voice.
"Because the silence is deafening".
She stares at me for a moment and I decide to stare right back, it may be silent but it does not require noise to carry a conversation. I challenge her to go on, to change the way we interact by actually fucking talking for once. Toss me a question I trip on like I did my thoughts when I felt her hand touch mine or when we made love that one, singular time. That singular fucking time I let go that left me reaching for solid ground again as if I stood on it in the first place. The ground that is crumbling and collapsing in on itself as earthquakes leave us on two sides of the same void.
"How could you possibly be lonely, Natalie. You're never alone, I'm right here and if not I'm only a call away".
"Physically that's true. Mentally you're on a horse in the middle of bum fuck Montana trotting into the sunset", I snort.
"What does that even mean?"
"It means you aren't actually here Demi, and me telling you is letting you know that I've noticed". I do not bother to hide the cracks in my voice because I'm tired of hiding all the breaks that need fixing. Every time I throw a blanket over a fire it just seems to burn brighter. Demi stares at me again, and again and again. It's the same state she gives her phone when she's scrolling through Twitter, empty.
"And you're implying I'm the only one? I know what a veneer is, I wore one until I got so lost in the life I built on it I punched someone in the face and was forced to take it off under professional supervision. You're faking a happiness you don't know how to express. Am I supposed to take a turn being blind now? Am I not supposed to see the spacey look in your eye or the dragging of your feet?"
"Well thank you for pointing out what you think 'isn't me' when I'm just getting to know me myself. If we're both so good at spotting each other's distaste then why are we here?"
Demi laughs, and she laughs loudly. It's not humorous though. It's a sad laugh where the tears come out in the tone of her voice instead of the creases in her eyes. "Love doesn't quit on love", she says quietly, relaxing into her booth. "So honey I'm not giving up on you and you sure as hell better not on me".
I smile longingly. It's the feeling again. Where I hear the ticking of a clock in the back of my mind and my fingertips shake like the pills out of my medication bottle. The smell of cigarette smoke and broken hearts fills my nose and images of her flash before my eyes. I want to give her forever and I need to touch her. What is wrong with me where a piece of glass is separating my body from my mind? Where is this missing piece of me in our relationship, I'm already all in. I dare to look Demi in the eyes truthfully for a minute, I let her take my breath away. I let the flashes of her gust through my mind like a summer wind storm. Then there it is, right in the twinkle of her stars.
"I've found the solution", I decide with a smile.
"Where", Demi asks with her head tilted slightly.
"In your eyes, where most of my solutions come from".
"Nat you've hardly looked at me for almost a month".
"Which is exactly why I haven't had any solutions. Let's go home so I can play superman and save myself again".
"I thought we were fixing us", she said.
"That's what I said", that's when the conversation ended. I made rockets of my feet and took her with me. All that were left was the check and the cups which were just slightly closer together.
----------------------------------------------I read the first couple chapters of this series And I almost cried. I need to edit so bad.
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Two Eyes Down: Nearsighted
Teen Fiction(Reading book one, Two Eyes Down, is strongly suggested) Natalie isn't blind anymore, but when she has to walk back into her life with sight not having it before, she might as well have been. She still has the life she did before, with friends and...
