Their dining room felt a thousand yards long. His ice-blue eyes bored into her like needles pricking her delicate skin. Words filled the air, his lips even moved, yet she heard none of them. All she could seem to do was look at his eyes. Not in a loving or longing manner; no, those feelings were long gone. She watched them with intrigue, an innate curiosity to see something perhaps she had not seen before.
She used to see oceans when she looked at them: deep swells of waves, beautiful, but something precarious lurked behind them. Waves eventually gave way to storms, quiet lightning sparking through the darkness of his pupils. His lips curled into a smile, which she noticed did not reach his eyes. Eyes that kept sucking her into murky, uncharted depths the more she tried to look away.
“Are you even listening to me?” he paused, regarding her suspiciously.
She sipped her coffee, knowing she heard the start of his lecture but chose to forgo hearing the conclusion. B was upset again, he was always upset. Either she had embarrassed him or failed to pull her weight somehow; she did not need his exact language to know that. B did not wait for her to answer, he simply continued on his tirade as she sat quietly.
Silence, as she had come to understand, is what he expected without asking for it. Her gaze shifted back to his eyes. Her reflection watched her as she watched him, a mirror image of her desperation to be free of the constant turmoil. She searched that reflection, inspected it for any signs of the person she once was. Her counterpart moved, almost imperceptibly, yet enough for her to flinch. His eyes rippled with her, undulating against the strain. B seemed unphased by it as she watched her parallel turn round and round.
She shook her head, covering her eyes, “that’s it, I’ve finally lost it.”
“Don’t be like that.” B interjected.
“Be like what?”
“Annoyed, you do that when you’re annoyed with me. I’m just saying how I feel.” B pulled her hand away from her face.
B always claimed to know how to read her and somehow he was still always wrong. Her head swam, sweat sprinkled her forehead. She wanted to react but she bit her tongue, holding back her confusion and rage. It was safer that way.
“Look at me.” B stated.
As much as she would have preferred to continue looking at the floor, she looked at him. Most of her life, she avoided direct eye contact with others. B was no different except that he used said eye contact as a weapon. He knew she was uncomfortable with it, yet insisted she do it anyway. Like demanding a fish to breathe outside of water simply because he wanted it. B squeezed her hand, her pupils fought their way to meet his. Her skin crawled at the sensation, the feeling of exposure when all she wanted was to shy away from everything.
She wanted to pluck them out, his eyes; take the spoon next to her and scoop them from their sockets. Those two empty holes would hold more life than the irises that rested within them ever seemed to. She wondered what it would feel like to hold them in her hands and roll them between her fingers before she smashed them beneath her feet. Her reflection, seemingly giddy at this prospect, smiled at her. She knew she was not smiling, her face felt neutral, like stone as she limited any expression she might make to avoid B’s scrutiny. Heart racing, she watched as the other picked up a spoon and began to carve B’s eyes out from the inside.
They grew red from the brutal action, and yet he continued talking. Transfixed, she could only lay witness to the jelly like chunks that fell to the table. She reached and took a small piece in her hand. She looked up at B, who’s eyes began to cry blood. He continued talking, gesticulating, not at all questioning the madness happening before her. Perhaps this was the psychotic break he warned her of when she started taking medication for depression.
Before long, the table on his end was covered in blood and sinew. Pieces of his eyeballs scattered throughout like confetti. She climbed onto the table, crawling over to him. B continuing his tirade like a battery operated puppet, a haunted robot mascot. Her other, smaller, half, happily sitting in his empty eye sockets, spoon in hand and satisfied. Running her own hands through the mess, she searched pieces of his eyes for something, anything to indicate there had been life inside them. His words fading into background noise.
She picked up the fork next to her spoon, gripping it tightly as the replica of her encouraged with wanting eyes. Eyes that did not exist could no longer frighten, could not look down upon her, and could not be used to hold her prisoner. Lost in delirium, she stabbed the pieces, picking them up and shoving them in her mouth. Salt and iron graced her tongue as she swallowed the chunks whole. He, nor his eyes, could possess her any longer but she would always possess a part of him.