Her eyes could break the hardest of hearts, but he turns away. Her only desire is to show him love but his eyes are closed. No light enters in and he closes her out. No amount of love can be seen if it is not sought after.
"How can you not see it?"
Her words soothe his angered soul. That simple fact in itself angers him. He is done searching for evidence.
In his heart he believes that he never truly loved her.
She sees it in his eyes and her heart breaks. He turns away from her and leans on an aged and sturdy wooden chair and shakes his head in a mixture of despair and disappointment. His heart is muddy.
"How can you not see it? Open your eyes! Go to the bookshelf. Open my journals. There you will find love."
He turns his head to the side, never fully looking her in the eyes. "Your journals lie." Even as he says it, he realizes that what he is saying is not true.
"I would never lie. Not about us. Go to the bookshelf. Read my journals. There you will find love."
Unmoving, he turns and looks at the bookshelf by the bed. It is simple and many years old. A crude coat of chipping turquoise paint covers every edge. A bent rusty nail is sticking out of the side. Filling the two shelves are books with unmarked spines. Some of elegant brown leather, and others with primitive string and glue bindings. A common quality throughout all of them is use. Every spine, no matter how fine, is worn from use. Each and every page has been turned . Every page written on. Every page read. Every page reread.
Life fills these books.
He has never touched the books. He has never looked at the shelf in detail. It was a sore spot that his eyes had always looked over. He knew that she wrote in them. He had seen her doing it almost daily. Even when she was sick she would write in them. And yet he had never read them. He didn't feel it was his place to read them. Now she was telling him, commanding him to read them. She was forcing him to review their lives together as she saw them.
The very idea of looking at their lives under a lens filled him with trepidation and anxiety. She sees it in his eye and goads him further on.
"Please. Go to the bookshelf. Read my journals. There you will find love."
He slowly takes a step towards the bookshelf.
"Go to the bookshelf."
He takes another step, his entire body is tensing up.
"Read my journals."
With every slowing step, he finds his anger turning to fear. His hardened heart anxious for what will be in the journals.
"There you will find love."
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