The Eyes Of An Artist

Chapter 2

Days passed and at first I remembered this girl. She lived in my memory like someone different from me, something that I hadn't created with my imagination. She remained as I had seen her: her curly brown hair, her soft warm gaze, her tender laugh and the way she was and wasn't present wherever she went. She remained. Weeks passed and nobody caught my eye like she did.
I just went to the university, met my friends, spent time with my family and did a normal life again. And I was fine with that. I just had this hope, this small hope, like a flame in the middle of the dephs of darkness. I had this hope that I would see her again, someday.
Months passed and eventually I started to forget her little by little. I had seen her only once and it was hard to mantain her image as I had seen it at first.
I remember this day that the man that founded the carreer of Musical therapy came to visit the university and I was hoping to see her. Maybe she had decided to come but I didn't find her. I searched for her body in the crowd and I couldn't find her.
I thought to myself that the story that I had been writing in my mind had ended the day that I first met her. I just knew her name and nothing more: Dolores. It felt strange to me that her name was the same as my mother's name but it didn't really mean anything.

I met a boy. A tall handsome guy, he was twenty four. His eyes were light brown and his laughter felt warm in my chest whenever I heard it.
I met him at a voluntary where we were giving food to the poor. I had signed up because I thought that it would help with my shyness and also it would help me in my working skills with people for the future.
The first time I saw him was when he was handing a plate to an old lady. His expression seemed beautiful to me in that moment. His mind was so caught up in the situation, he seemed so focused and alive while helping...I just felt that maybe he had something different, a nice heart.
That night we spoke to eachother and from that day on we started dating.
I never thought that I could actually be happy with a guy. I had always seen that in movies, and in my friends but not in me.
With him everything felt fine, in place. But it just didn't move me, it didn't make me feel that sting in my chest, that thing that makes you feel complete. And I convinced myself that this was what love was about.
His name was Thomas. And we were close to eachother.
We dated for around six months and eventually began a relationship.
Thomas had this way of making me forget about my own worries and thoughts. He was funny and he knew what to say and when. I liked that about him, he wasn't dumb at all. I had always thought that boys couldn't understand women at all but he was sensitive and he noticed everything. We had fun doing things that were strange. We loved to talk about everything and stay up late while having very wierd conversations. We would cycle a lot around the city, go to the river, lay under the cloudy sky, write stories together.
He was beautiful. His features were both masculine and femenine and I was atracted to both of them.
I noticed that I loved him in a specific moment while we were laying in bed. We were sharing a cigarrete in this calm silence and I could still feel the humid parts of my body where he had kissed me. It was late at night and I could see his face with the soft light of the lamp in our room. His eyes were lost in the darkness and I could tell he was thinking.
His chest was bare and naked while it moved softly up and down. I looked at his hands and remembered the grip of his fingers on my wrists while he made love to me and made me forget of any other pleasure. I looked at his arms and remembered how it felt when he would hold me against his body while we slept. I looked at his whole body and felt that we both belonged to eachother.
This warmth gathered up in my chest and the words slipped out of my lips,
- Tom... - I said, interrupting the silence. He didn't say anything so I went on,
- I love you.
He looked at me now with his brown cozy eyes and touched my left cheek with his fingers. His lips turned into a smile and we were silent for a while until he whispered with a soft voice that I hadn't heard before,
- I love you too.