NB: The Search (BoyxBoy)

Preview 3

“Do you love me?” Victoria asks.

I look over at her.  Her eyes are beautiful.  They’re turquoise on the inside and they fade into a majestic lavender around the edge.  I love her eyes.  Do I love her?  No.  I want to love her.  I really do.  Everything would be so much easier if I did.  But I don’t and she knows it.

She smirks at my silence.  “I didn’t think so,” she says.

“Why did you ask then?”

She looks into my eyes.  I feel like she knows me.  I wish I knew her better. 

“I just thought that maybe I was special.  That maybe I could…” her voice fades to silence, as if she’s afraid to finish the sentence out loud.

“Maybe you could what?” I ask. 

“It’s just that you always have this look in your eyes.  You always look so sad.  I thought that maybe I could make you happy.”

I run my hand along her arm.  Her warmth feels good against my skin.  Being with her makes me feel better, but it doesn’t make me feel happy, it just dulls the empty feeling.

“This is the City of Lost Souls,” I say.  “We’re all here because we feel like we’re missing something.  We were brought here by our yearning.  Doesn’t everyone look sad?”

“Of course everyone’s sad.  But the look in your eyes is so much worse.  You feel it so much more than anyone else.  We’re all sad, but the look in your eyes is tragic.”

We lie there in silence, basking in each other’s presence.  There’s that strange mixture of affection and contempt in the air that marks the end of a relationship.

Victoria gets up and starts to put on clothes.  I sit up in bed and watch her, enjoying her naked form for what’s likely the last time.

“Most people fall in love over and over again.  I know men who say they love every woman they share a bed with.  I know other men who mean it when they say they love you.  They break their love into little pieces and give it to anyone who’ll take it.  My love isn’t like that.  My love is whole.  I can’t just give it away bit by bit.  I’ve never told a woman I loved her.  I’ve never met a woman that I loved.  I’m still waiting for the one to give my love to in its entirety.”

Victoria looks over at me.  I can see the pity in her eyes.  She thought she could fix me, but now she sees how hopeless I really am.  “Are you sure there’s any woman out there that you’ll find worthy enough to love?”

“There’s one,” I say.  “I see her in my dreams every night.  She’s perfect.  She’s mine.  I love her.”

“Are you sure she exists?” Victoria asks.  It’s a stupid question.  She should know better.

“Everything exists,” I say.  By dreaming her, I made her real.

“But she could be anywhere, how will you find her?”

“I don’t know.”  I wish I did.

“You’re as tragic as I always imagined you were.”  She walks over to me, now mostly dressed, and kisses me on the cheek.

I get up and start to put on my clothes.  Victoria offers to make some breakfast or coffee.  I don’t really want any.  I just want to go home.  Now that everything is in the open, I can’t stay any longer.

Victoria and I say goodbye.  We say we’ll still talk and that we should catch up soon, but we won’t.  I don’t want to.  I doubt that she does either.