She was so fucking beautiful. It hurt to look at her. I mean it. Like someone reached in and set a stone in my chest, this pressure I felt just looking at her. A physical discomfort. I would dart from feature to feature, eyes, lips, the small scar on her chin, a stray lock of hair made blinding in the light from the window. I would let my eyes unfocus. It didn’t matter. She was burned in my retinas, a permanent afterimage. My love for her, and hers for me, it imbued her with a radiance that was almost tangible. In crowds she glowed for me. I could always find her; just follow the light.
“What do you think-“
“You’re very pretty,” I said, marveling at my capacity for understatement.
“What?”
“Your face. It’s incredibly pretty and I like looking at it.”
“Are you being a dick?”
“No. No, I am not. I mean it.”
Her brow furrowed. She always thought I was making fun of her. I almost never was. If I did it was only to make her scrunch up her face, to purse her strangely uptilted lips in an expression of pert dismissal. She was perhaps more beautiful when scrunching.
“Thank you.”
“No, thank you.”
“What do you think about-“
“I love you.”
“Will you stop it, please?”
“Loving you? No. No I will not.”
“Stop being a dick,” she said, her face scrunching, her lips pursed.
She left me in September, citing a lack of tenderness.
