Her Eyes

The thing I remember most about that summer is the colour green. We were always surrounded by it. The trees, the grass, the lake, and her eyes. Her eyes were the most beautiful green that I'd ever seen. They were crystals that glittered and changed with her emotions. Dark and cloudy if she was mad, upset or confused. Shining and translucent if she was excited or thrilled. I planned my day around her eyes.

We would go swimming in the cool, crisp waters of Lake Owatanna. We spent hours in the water until our arms and legs were tired, our shoulders burned and 'till our skin was shriveled like raisins. We would have back flip contests off the floating raft, canoe races that nearly always ended in us tipping each other over, and splash fights that made our eyes go red.

When we weren't in the water we were either hiking, playing badminton or just talking, telling each other our secrets and desires. We would spend an entire day traversing the little hills and crossing through fields. I'd prepare our lunches so that she could sleep in longer and then we'd head off together. We would find little patches of heaven to rest at. We'd sit under a tree or by a stream and she'd hold me in her arms and I'd feel safe. I never wanted to be in another place again when I had her freckled, bony arms wrapped around my bronzed ones.

It always seemed to happen that way. She would freckle, then immediately burn. I always felt bad for her, having to spend a day inside, nursing her wounds because she had foolishly forgotten the sunscreen back at our camp the day before. I never left her on those days; she needed me to rub aloe on her warm, charred skin. I was always lucky in that sense, slowly getting browner and browner over the days, achieving that perfect tan.

Yes, when the days were like that, life was great, but every once in awhile it would get worse, much worse. She'd wake up grumbling about something or another. The ground had been too hard, her skin hurt, her eyes hurt, her head hurt. That it was too cold that day, or that I was annoying her. 'Why are you always around me? Don't you have you own freakin' life?' Those comments stung, and I never knew how to deal with them properly. If I tried to be sweet and consoling she'd yell at me for being a sap. If I left her alone to deal with it herself, she'd bawl at me for being distant.

Then the worst thing happened, I woke up and realized she wasn't in the tent. At first I thought, maybe she's just outside somewhere, outhouses maybe. But I walked around to look and she wasn't there. Then I checked the beach, the showers, the canoe rack and I even scanned the lake, looking for her flaxen blonde head bobbing in the water. Nothing. I will admit, I was scared shitless. Where the hell could she have gone too? I grabbed a bottle of water and a sweater and decided to search the trails.

I called her name over and over again. All I could hear in reply was the sounds of the forest, more frightening now then the usual calming effect they had. Then an hour went by, then two. I was panicking. Rash conclusions and horrid situations ran through my mind, making me sick. I was about to give up and go talk to the camp owner when I caught a flash of her hair out of the corner of my eye. There, by the fallen down tree we had visited several times before; there was my angel.

I ran over to her, and the sight of her freckled face made me burst into tears. I clung to her body and she tried to calm me, clearly confused about my reaction. As soon as my tears had reduced themselves to a trickle, and my breathing slowed, no longer harsh, ragged breaths, I was able to get angry. Why had she scared me so? Didn't she think of leaving a note, some sort of sign of life so that I would know that she hadn't drowned in the lake or worse?

She was completely taken back by my explanation. She told me she never realized that the thought of losing her would hurt me so much. Tears of love and gratitude formed in the corners of her eyes and it was her turn to cling to me and cry. I patted her hair and kissed her tear-stained face. Of course it would hurt, she was my life, and she was my world. Sure, she hurt me sometimes, but I would stick by her because that's what you do when the other person owns your heart.

In turn she told me how sorry she was for having behaved in such a way, that it was a mental thing for her, something she had never really wanted to acknowledge and believe. Now she could see how important it was for her to seek help, how she couldn't bear hurting me more then she already had.

She dried her face and I held her close, whispering reassurance and words of love into her ear. I lifted her chin and looked into those captivating green eyes. If I had to be a prisoner of anything, I thought as I held her body against mine, it would be those perfect, shining orbs that were now filled with newfound life, and love.