The Eyes

Back then I used to go to bed early. Back before the visions began visiting me. People would say they were just dreams, but a dream is not so real that it is like living.

Back then I was just a simple girl who might have been a little mischievous, but overall, I obeyed my parents. I honored them just as the Bible had taught me in church. My Momma swore by what the Bible taught and made sure we were in church whenever the doors were open.

When she started cleaning the four-room church building, she was given a key, so we were sometimes there even when there wasn’t church. Momma found solace there.

Daddy didn’t go to church. He didn’t put much stock in the Bible or the preacher. Momma thought the preacher was right after the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

I didn’t quite believe he was that good. If he knew almost as much as God, why didn’t he know how to preach a sermon that didn’t have Mr. Grissom snoring like a buzz saw two minutes in?

I did well enough in school, too. I wasn’t a star student, but I did listen and read and learn. I might not have done all my work, but I did well on my tests. What more did they need?

I might not have gotten any scholarships, but I found a way to go on to school. I did well enough to get my degree and get an office job. I’m not sure why I studied business when I love words more, but that’s what I did. Now there’s no going back.

I find solace in words during my off time. I read books. Books are the world I prefer. There’s adventure there with no danger. There’s romance there without broken hearts. There is wonder there with no darkness.

Of course, you can find the darkness if you want it. There are authors who only write about the darkness. I just stay away from those books. I don’t like the darkness. I guess Momma and church taught me that. The darkness is always bad. The darkness is always danger. The darkness is always evil.

I worked hard to keep the darkness out of my life, and I did a good job of it until I met him. He didn’t seem like the darkness when we first met. He was a good man. He was a kind man. He was a loving man. At least that’s how he seemed then.

We spent time together, but I always remembered what the Bible taught me. We behaved. I stayed pure. He respected my beliefs…at first.

It didn’t make sense that he could have any darkness. He was the image of my daddy. He was smart, and he worked hard. He had a degree, and he came from a good family. He spoke softly, and he made me feel special. He made me think of daddy in other ways, too, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

Sometimes we sat on the swing holding hands, and he would look at me with those eyes like pools of melted chocolate. Then that chocolate would harden, and he would give me another look that I didn’t like, a look that made me shake.

He would try to talk me into being with him, but I told him what the Bible says, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication.” Surely, he would not want me to disobey God. He was a good man. He was a kind man. He was a smart man.

These are the things I told myself when he looked at me with hard eyes and brushed the hair back from my forehead. As he drew closer to me and his lips were close enough for me to taste his breath, I always turned my head as he leaned in to press his lips to mine. I had to be strong for us both. That’s what Momma taught me. She was a godly woman, and she wanted me to be one, too.

Oh, how I wish I had been able to talk to Momma, but her heart had taken her to Heaven three years before. I wish there was a phone line to Heaven. Momma would have counselled me on what to do.

Momma wanted me to be a godly woman, but she never taught me what to do when I started having ungodly thoughts. It was frightening to think that I might give in to my desires — and his. That would have made Momma sad, so I did the only thing I could do. I ran away.

I didn’t literally run away. I excused myself and went home. I didn’t want to make Momma sad. It didn’t seem fair that I could love him and not be with him, but Momma and God said it was wrong.

I didn’t understand why I had those feeling when God said it was wrong. I told Trent that we couldn’t see each other anymore when I phoned him the next day. He didn’t understand, and promised he wouldn’t bring it up anymore. I told him we had to be strong, even if it meant being apart. Sometimes being apart is the only way we can fulfill God’s plan.

He wasn’t too happy with that and begged me to give him another chance. He promised he could be strong. He promised he could resist the temptations. He promised he would wait until God had joined us together as husband and wife.

For awhile he was the man he promised he could be. For awhile he was a godly man. At least I thought he was. He never leaned into me with that look anymore, but now that I think about it, there were times when I turned around and saw that hard look in his eyes.

I was wearing blinders. I wanted it all to be okay. I wanted us to be able to follow God’s will and stay away from the precipice of desire. That precipice is a dangerous place where one loose stone could send you tumbling to the depths of the pit.

I just wanted us to be happy and in love and in God. I didn’t want to see his thoughts or acknowledge them. They were from the darkness, and I vowed not to go anywhere near the darkness.

Sometimes you don’t see where you’re going until you’re nearly there.

One night, Momma was at a church meeting, and daddy was out at the bar. We were sitting on the porch, so that we didn’t give people a reason to think that we were doing anything improper. That’s safe, right? Sitting on the porch on a nice Autumn evening, holding hands, and dreaming about the future. That’s what young people do, right?

I made a remark about what kind of dog we would get one day, and I turned to look at him, expecting a laugh, or at least a grin. I did love that lopsided grin he got when something tickled him. He did not look tickled.

He had those hard eyes again. I asked what was wrong, but I knew. Why had this happened again? Why did he have such a hard time dealing with his carnal self? That’s what the preacher called those feelings. He called them your carnal self.

His carnal self had hard eyes that were more black than chocolate brown. His carnal self had a hard chin that looked like it had been carved from the same stone as the monument in the center of town. His carnal self had hard hands that didn’t feel anything like the gentle hands I had held just moments before.

Those hard eyes stared through me while the hard jaw cut off his words and those strong hands pushed me into the house. His carnal self had won the battle. I wasn’t strong enough for both of us.

As he shoved me up the stairs, I wondered just how hard he had fought his carnal self. It didn’t seem like it could have been much of a fight.

I was the one fighting as he threw me into my bedroom and those hard hands shredded my clothes and bruised my body. It didn’t matter how much I fought. It only seemed to make him stronger. I cried and begged for the man who loved me. I begged for those soft chocolate eyes and gentle hands.

The last thing I remember from that night is looking into those hard eyes while his jaw unclenched enough to let out a laugh. The man I loved was not there. I wasn’t sure he had ever been there.

That’s the night I started staying awake as long as I could. That’s when I started staying up at night wondering if God was disappointed in me. That’s when I started dreaming of those hard eyes. In the dreams, I always saw those hard eyes.

The part that always makes me wake up in a cold sweat is that sometimes those hard eyes are in Trent’s face, but sometimes the face is my daddy’s.

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