Metafiction - The girl with gray eyes

“Did you write in that notepad I gave you, Roger?”

“Yeah, yeah. Why do you want me to do this anyway?”

“Just do it, will you. It won’t kill you to write a little bit of something every day. Just pour out your emotions, Roger. Really, it’s not that hard.”

People ask me why a guy like me started to write. It was because of her. She told me to write. Every day. She said to relax, to feel, to love. She had gray eyes. Not the stormy kind, but the kind that is transparent and lucid, you know? Kind of like the color of the creek at dawn, only brighter. It was those eyes, I think, that dazzled me into agreeing. Dang.That girl.

I was running, running, and running. I could feel the wind whistling in my ears, the sharp pangs of pain running through my legs like electric shocks, and the stray branches and tall weeds around me whipping at my face. My heart felt like it was going to explode and I was gasping desperately for breath. And yet I kept running without ever looking back.

“What are you running from?”

We were outside by the creek, and I was writing. She was looking over my shoulder, and a cascade of auburn hair shrouded my view. A fragrance of wildflowers filled in the air…or was it the smell of her hair?

“Hey, you told me to write, not to explain.”

She put on a face, making the bridge of her nose crinkle. Then she smiled. A smile that could make your heart shatter into a thousand pieces.

“At least you’re writing something. I like your descriptions.”

Her hair moved from my face and she walked in the direction of the oak tree. Her light, airy figure looked so small and weak in the presence of the great oak. My cheeks were tingling from her hair’s touch and a tint of wildflower lingered in the air.

Its speed grew faster and faster. I tumbled, rolled, and fell flat on my stomach, but I got up and ran faster. The whole place was closing in on me or was it just my imagination?

She was giggling, her gray eyes sparkling all over the place.

“Are you going through some kind of trauma, Roger?”

I started to give her a little punch in the arm, but stopped myself. Her arms were so skinny, so white, so fragile…

“That’s it. I’m never going to show my writing to you again.”

Her eyes widened and she stopped giggling. She reached out and touched my arm, so different from hers – muscular, tanned, and strong.

“I’m sorry.”

My heart skipped a beat. I looked away from her.

It grabbed my heart and tried to pull it apart. The harder I tried to get free, the harder it grabbed me.

We were sitting on top of our favorite tree. She looked at what I wrote, and then looked at me.

“I hope your heart’s okay, Roger.”

Dang it, those eyes again. It was clutching me in its gray gaze. No. I can’t let them mesmerize me… No. This can’t happen. I won’t…but it was such a pretty gray. She was leaning in, closer, and closer. Her eyes were beginning to close. A curtain of auburn lashes was slowly coming down to cover silver gray diamonds. I could see a speck of dust caught in her lashes, the exact contours of that dimple in her chin, all the strands of auburn hair on her pale and smooth forehead, and oh my god, why the hell were my eyes closing as well.

I pulled back.

“No. You’re just a girl who has a weird disease! I know all about it! That’s why your eyes are gray!”

She opened her eyes, and the gray diamonds were drowned in water.

I pushed the thing away…but my heart ripped out with it.

She was moving to Ohio, where there was a specialist doctor to help her get the right treatment for the disease. She knew that she was moving, and was trying to get me to write, so that she could take it with her as a memory of me when she moved. 

"I wanted a piece of your soul, Roger. Your writing. But I saw the soul that was within you, and it's not something I want to take with me." 

My heart hurt. It hurt real bad.

“Yikes!” I shouted. Then it was quiet. Then I realized I had been dreaming. But the pain was real. It was still lingering. I have often encountered this kind of dream since I last spring, when cancer cells were first discovered in my heart.

I've decided to start writing this again. I have been having nightmares about her since she left last spring. It’s already been a year. What if she never forgives me? What if she died during the surgery? Maybe, if I start writing in her notepad again, I might be able to find peace.

Since then, this room in the hospital has been my home and I was hiding from the world outside. From deep inside, I was deeply missing the world outside instead of the world inside the hospital.

I was still hiding from the truth. I was justifying my actions, telling myself that she was only a girl with a disease. Just a girl, just a plain, typical girl. But…there was nothing plain about that smell of wildflower in her hair. There was nothing typical about that clear, gray color.

I decided to sneak out of the hospital. I slowly crept down the stairs and out of the hospital. The outside air was not as cold as I expected it to be. In fact, I noticed that there was no air at all. I was suffocating. The medicine that was injected into me by my various tubes and chords was absent, and my body was feeling it. I could feel a bubbly foam coming out of my gaping mouth searching for air. I was pounding on my heart crazily and then, I died. With no one to help me, with no one that loves me, with no one that cares for me, with no one standing by me.

I wanted be able to smell that tint of wildflower again. I wanted to see that color of clear and untainted gray again. I loved her. I loved her. I loved her! I accepted my emotions, and I finally accepted how important that girl was to me. But…it was too late. She left…not with my soul, but with a scar I have given her. And it just about kills me.

The thing I was running away from was the love I felt for her.

It was overwhelming me, and I pushed it away.

The resulting pain in my heart was a cancer, multiplying uncontrollably.

And now I died because she is gone.

Sometimes, when spring comes, I go back to that creek again, the place where I used to meet her. I sit in our favorite tree, and I write for her. The wind brings memories as well as a hint of wildflower smell and the image of that pure, unclouded gray.

She closed the bestselling novel of Roger Contento, one of the most popular writers in this day. 
The back cover of the book read:
The bestselling author Roger Contento's memoir featuring his very first piece of writing and his remorseful emotions about his first love. An evocative story within a story to please readers of all ages.
"A nice chunk of Contento's soul that anyone would want to have" The New York Times
"Contento evokes emotions like no other" USA Today
"A glowing novel" The Washington Post Book World
She finished reading the book. She smiled ...a smile that could make your heart shatter into a thousand pieces.
And her eyes were gray.