Deep Dark Eyes

"Damn It!"

It woke him up again; the dream. 

Ryan has long since grown used to it. Like a mole suddenly appearing on his neck, now decades later he finds himself expecting it will always be there, too painful to remove yet now, so much a part of his life he would miss it terribly were it to leave.

It was 2:00 a.m.. He lay there on his back, staring at the nothingness of pitch black. Ryan's wife, Angela lay next to him; only a slight snore, but a beautiful one, so soothing. Her tranquil voice could almost be heard in her sleeping breath and at once it made him feel the love for her as well as the utter guilt. Of course he had no power over what his mind did as he slept, yet, it must be deep, deep within him! There must be some sinister seed planted deep down that now rooted within for so many, many years.

He dreams of a girl, so many girls before his beautiful bride. It was more than a lifetime ago and that young boy Ryan was long gone, replaced by an old man whose wisdom was culled through a generation of tragedy and joy that truly made that teenage boy inside feel like the infant he truly was. "How absurd", Ryan thought as his reasoned mind awakened to quench the fire of this latest dream. "That boy no longer exists, and neither does that girl", he subconsciously considered. And yet, over the years the dream has grown. Over the many experiences of a husband, a father, a dear old friend on his journey of wisdom, so too did this dream continue. His wild imagination added to it, wondered and considered. As most dreams do, it added in parts of reality with that of the absurdity of a love never commenced. Yet , "what if?". A relationship nurtured within Ryan's sleeping mind and it continued, as if it actually existed in a parallel universe...adding imagined experiences to a conjured up life that grew as his reality grew. It was a bit frightening because unlike most dreams, this one continued, adding chapters as if it was a story, decades long.

In Ryan's dream he has always loved her...she was the one and the only. It is only in the dream that fact...that absurdity...ever really is acknowledged, ever really is admitted. As he sleeps, the dream is as real as his love for the woman who now lays by his side and who has done so for thirty years now. He has always been faithful to Angela, never really consciously fantasized of any other woman really. He lays looking at the ceiling that is not there, deep and dark, listening to the true love of his life as she inhales and exhales...the real person next to him, and his heart melts. He knows the routine now, so often has it happened; he will now get up, put the coffee on, wrest the sinister demon memories of this latest dream, so real was it, from his mind, only to fail. For the rest of the day, familiar smells will conjure up actual memories of the young girl from his teenage past. He will do something or hear something that suddenly rekindles a moment in this latest dream that brings it all back. He will feel heart sick and truly deep longing for that young girl, her long brunette hair, those amazing deep, dark eyes, her laugh and all the looks she once gave him that he always mistook as sisterly love yet realized over the years it was far from that. All of these thoughts will occur to him throughout the next twelve hours or so, until sleep once again beckons and just as if it never happened, he will be allowed once again to live without the memory of Denise until his next dream of her maybe months away.

Often, Ryan has forced himself to remember reality in hope of some desperate "self-therapy", laughably like that television character "Frasier", he plays obsessive games with himself remembering actual details of once knowing Denise and having her in his young life forty years ago. He remembers a hot summer night when he and his best friend walked miles to visit her. Denise was best friends with his sister Carly and she was over that afternoon swimming in the pool at his home. It was a typical summer vacation party; many of their friends were having fun, playing "Marco Polo". He found himself peaking as he yelled, "Marco" and realizing he was falling for that petite brunette in the skimpy bikini, all of fourteen years old as she yelled, "Polo". As Ryan swam for her "blindly" Denise swam away, an instantly he realized his sickness was about to attack again.

He was a hopeless romantic at fifteen years old. For a few years now, he would find himself attracted to a girl in class and his wild naive imagination would have them married and living happily ever-after like all the fairy tales he believed as a child. People fell in love and got married. His family did that. They never left each other. They stayed together, as one, forever. So, this child's mind connected the few dots it had experienced and this near-infant's epic imagination created new dots! Several times Ryan's young heart wasn't just broken, it was shattered...blown to smithereens...like no pain he had ever experienced in his life until then. These girls, so much more mature than he, some seemingly decades more mature, either ignored him or worse...played him badly, so fascinating was it to see a young man cry like a baby or look as if a knife had entered his belly as they slowly twisted it, curiously watching his face contort in tragic pain.

So, this time it was Ryan's turn to play coy and all he did was peak at her and fantasize to himself. Later on, after the game, he discovered Denise would be babysitting at a neighbor's home that night and he said to her, "maybe Mark and I will stop up and see you!". Denise said, "great, I get so bored when the kids go to bed!" It was Saturday night and that new comedy show "Saturday Night Live" was on so that was the excuse to kidnap Mark and go see her later that night. So, Ryan and Mark walked three miles in the dark and stumbled upon the porch of that family's home. Denise could be seen through the large picture window, sitting on the sofa watching T.V. Ryan grabbed Mark's arm as Mark began to reach for the doorbell. He wanted to watch her for a little bit more. She was devastatingly gorgeous as she sat there cross-legged in the tiny shorts she wore over her bikini, mesmerized by the TV, eating popcorn. Ryan couldn't take it anymore and rang the bell himself. Her large dark eyes suddenly turned toward the window and she squinted. Her eyes actually became more beautiful when she did that and the memory of her like that burned into his soul forever. She unfolded her thin long legs and got up off the sofa. As she approached the front screen door, her eyes lit up! She looked only at Ryan and not Mark, who himself was quite a handsome young man. She was both surprised and excited; she thought to herself, "they actually did show up!"

He remembers nothing else of that hot summer night forty-five years ago except her laugh. She laughed so strongly and so honestly. Her laugh was that of a free spirit who didn't give a shit that girls shouldn't laugh that loud. She did. It said so much of what she was all about. Ryan realizes now, and with all the unwanted dreams, it was early on that he shut her out of his romantic sicknesses. For the next three years, from fifteen to eighteen years old, Denise was an almost a daily part of Ryan's existence, so close was she with his sister Carly; she in fact became another sister. He did everything he could to make sure that narrative was etched into his mind like a tattoo and just as permanent. He went onto "falling in love" with another one of his sister's friends; a beguiling overly matured girl, a year younger than he yet decades older in soul and spirit...even intimately. She toyed with him for two years, destroying him by becoming his first intimate relationship only to have her find another boy just days later and date him for months. He would die a thousand deaths over her as two years seemed like twenty and he grew up fast. Still, he found another girl; his first steady female relationship and it began as he was about to graduate high school.

As the graduation commenced, Ryan had already made his plans to attend the graduation picnic at the local park afterwards with his new girlfriend, Mary. Yet at the graduation, besides his mother and father being there...so was Denise. His sister Carly wasn't with her, in fact Denise's own brother was also graduating that day. Having so placed Denise off his list, Ryan never considered why she was there. Nor did he consider why she showed up at the picnic later as he was joined by his new girlfriend Mary...and Ryan and Mary began to commence their own relationship. Yet, it did stick in the back of his mind that Denise was there...curiously. Her large, dark gorgeous eyes never left him, even as he had his eyes on another. But that seed was planted no matter what Ryan pretended.

That was the last he would see Denise for nine long years. Ryan left that first girlfriend a year after that, it wasn't a good break-up. He became too obsessed with Mary and her family worried, they found ways to split them up and it worked. It was he who broke up with her...a friend convinced him it was the best thing to do. Mary became so distraught over him breaking up with her, she became intimate with another of his friends; a move that found it's intent and devastated Ryan as bad as any hurt he had ever felt. After a while he discovered "the rebound", found another girlfriend, married her so as not to lose her, then discovered divorce, all before he finished college! As he "matured" he learned how to hurt first before getting hurt and became good at it. Finally after several tries at this new strategy, he discovered it didn't really work, Ryan still loved too much. Finally he found Angela who would become his soul mate. He matured, he proposed. This time, he meant it. This time it was real.

Shortly after he proposed to the woman who would become his current wife, Ryan paid a visit back home, back to the town he left years before. His sister Carly was also in town and they decided to have a night out with old friends. She invited Denise and Denise's brother out for dinner and drinks. Ryan was away from his bride-to-be and still considered Denise to be almost family. He hadn't seen her in nine years. At twenty-seven, nine-years is like twenty years...it seemed a lifetime had happened since then. But, of course it isn't a lifetime and Denise looked exactly the same; only somehow more beautiful. This time, because he was engaged, because he was settled on one girl...one woman, because he truly had nothing to lose and seemed the adult, Ryan looked upon Denise as she was. She was, in fact deeply in his heart. Now, alcohol had settled within his veins, and the terror of what she really meant to him was extinguished. It was there, but he didn't care. As Denise's brother drove the car that night, back home from the bar, as his sister Carly sat with Denise's brother in the front seat, Ryan found himself too close to Denise in the back. They talked small talk, feeling the drinks from the bar. Their eyes met. He saw her deep dark eyes in the darkness of the back seat and they street lights moving past gleamed in her pupils. He remembered that look nine years ago, when she looked at him as he was about to kiss his then very first steady girlfriend Mary and it was the same look. It was a look of profound happiness for him and deep soulful sadness for her. Ryan realized just then how much Denise truly loved him.

He also realized how much he loved her. Instantly, everything around them disappeared, they closed toward each other and he felt the breath of her mouth enter his. Soft lips pressed against his own and they stayed that way forever. It was a moment yet it was an eternity...years in the making. There was a knowing silence in the front of the car because the conversation in the back was long gone. It mattered not to the two in the back, they remained locked together in only a kiss, yet a kiss that was more intimate than anything intimate they had yet discovered in their young adult lives. Ryan and Denise remained this way until the car turned ever so gently into the driveway; driven by someone who must have known how Denise felt. They lingered an inch from each other for a moment and he still felt her breath within him. He looked at her so close to her and he peered into her deep dark eyes and at once the love and sadness intermingled within them.

Now, he felt what she felt; meant to be, yet not. Lives apart, worlds apart.
He opened the car door, pleasantries ensued...just like old times. His aloof character came back into being and she played along, yet her eyes would not. The car door shut and as the dome light went out, the image of her deep dark eyes, sad and happy burned again into his soul. that was the last time he would ever see her for real.

He married his soulmate a month later. They married for life. Ryan plans on dying with his wife Angela. Angela and Ryan have lived a journey of reality; ups and downs ecstasy and tragedy, no human could ever replace Angela in his heart. He loves her desperately and has never had eyes for another. Yet every so often, those deep, dark eyes enter his soul at his most vulnerable moments; deep in his sleep, unable to control and run from ghosts. Ryan knows now, as he sips his morning coffee, Denise's deep, dark eyes shall haunt him forever.