Knox Parker had been my saving grace, my redemption. Looking back, I can see that he saved me. He taught me that no matter how unlovable you think you are, there will always be someone out there who loves you just for who you are.
After that afternoon in the bookstore, he asked me to his school’s dance. I reminded him it would be social suicide to be seen with me at his school, but he simply laughed.
We went to the dance and had a lovely time.
He asked me to be his girlfriend three days later in the middle of The Reader’s Repository. I said yes, of course.
That was twelve years ago.
We were so young, so naïve, but we were in love. We were madly in love.
Our first kiss happened at the last football game that season. They had won the game, and I ran onto the field to hug him, only to be kissed right on the mouth. In later years he would claim he was aiming for my cheek, but we both knew that was a lie.
Knox and I dated through the rest of high school. When the time came to graduate, he was going to college and I was not. I had my bookstore, so I was set. On the day before he left for college (which was still in state) he got down on one knee in the middle of my bookstore.
He didn’t hold out a ring box.
No, my guy was much more special than that.
He held out a book.
It was carved out in the inside, containing the ring.
The book was The Picture of Dorian Gray.
The book that started it all, that fateful day when we first met.
We’d had the wedding when I’d been 19, him 20.
We were young, but we obtained a love so fierce it rocked the stars.
The wedding had been 9 years ago.
Now I’m older, but still much the same. I’m 28 now, and we live in a house about three minutes from the bookstore. Knox helps me with it, and one day we will pass it on to our children.
There’s one place in my house that is my absolute favorite. It’s a hallway. It connects all the bedrooms in my house together. But on that wall, hangs many pictures. The majority of people that enter my home are confused by them.
They’re grouped rather oddly. Most people group pictures by the time they were taken, or the person in the picture.
I group my pictures by eye color.
There are two primary eye colors on the walls. Purple, which is happiness, and pink, which is frustration.
In all my pictures, eye color is captured even if the exact emotion the person in the picture was wearing wasn’t.
Me holding my daughter. Her eyes purple, but mine pink as I struggled to keep her still for the camera.
Knox working on my car, he’s smiling but his eyes are pink.
But my favorite picture hangs at the end of the hallway.
It was taken at the birth of my second child.
I’m sitting in a hospital bed, sweaty, filthy, propped up by pillows, holding my newborn son. Knox stands beside me, holding our toddler daughter. We aren’t even looking at the photographer when the picture was snapped.
We were looking at each other.
And every single one of our eyes is the exact same shade of the exact same color.
Green.
The color of love.
THE END♥
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Well, there ya have it! I'm going to miss this story so much guys. If you have time, maybe check out my other stories?
Thanks for riding this rollercoaster with me guys! :)
~Juliana
YOU ARE READING
Irised
Teen Fiction"That's Knox Parker, Rae." "Thank you Captain Obvious. I know who he is," I roll my eyes and buckle up. "What's wrong?" "That's the biggest jerk at school. He's popular and he knows it, he's good looking and he knows it, he's funny and he knows it...
